Hope of Morning
by KingRiles
Summary: Things have been relatively well, though as of late, gem monster strikes have grown more and more common across the globe. The discovery of something in the mountains leaves the Gems shaken. And it's only rolling out the red carpets for the alarming events to come for all of the Gems who've made Earth home. [Canon-Divergence]
1. Chapter 1

**Hullo, and welcome to the first chapter of Hope of Morning! _Honestly, I just really liked the song and that one SUMV I saw. . don't judge._**

 **I've honestly been dying to write a canon-divergence story that's more than just a fluffy oneshot. Since I'm not juggling any other stories, and with an uneventful winter break coming up, I have high hopes that this story will kick off and will keep on kicking.**

 **Rated K+ because I don't intend to include many _mature_ themes as of right now! All the angst and sadness and stuff will come later. c= Ha.**

 **I really hope you enjoy! This story takes place at some point beyond the canonical _Three Gems and a Baby_. **

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own Steven Universe. That beauty belongs to Rebecca Sugar.**

* * *

One could say that the southern hemisphere's rain forest was a place of controlled chaos. The stereotypical chime of endless cicadas in the leafy growth, gnats flooding any unfortunate soul bold enough to brave the elements, and the unearthly shriek of a corrupted gem monster as it barrels through the foliage with three determined figures in tow.

Wait, that wasn't natural at all.

A large brindled creature crashed through the ferns, a brown gemstone embedded into its eyeless head. Its crooked mouth was wide with panic as its pursuers quite literally flew through the mess of trampled greenery. It sent another barrage of mottled spikes whistling towards them from its lower back.

Steven promptly threw up his shield, blocking the impending spines with a _hmff_.

Amethyst and Pearl skirted around the shield. Amethyst thrashed her embezzled whip while Pearl summoned another spear from her gem, each taking turns to threaten its flanks with a jab or slash whenever it dared ride off-course.

Steven lagged just behind, giving occasional shouts of, "hey guys, wait up!"

Pearl furrowed her brows in consternation.

The chase had been going on for a little longer than Pearl would have favored. It was supposed to have been a moderately easy mission, as over the time since first locating the abandoned place the area was occasionally patrolled for life.

There had been reports of corrupted gem activity relative to the ancient gem ship where Steven's Centipeetle and her corrupted crewmates dwelled. For an instant they had considered the seemingly docile corruptions turning rogue, though it'd been a secretly relieving find to realize it was another type of gem.

A type of gem that was slowly being driven into the waiting hands of their trap after proving ridiculously hard to catch.

" _Yo, P_! It's heading off-track!" She heard Amethyst holler over the _thud, thud, thud_ of the monster's paws. "Got it!" Pearl answered, twirling her spear in her thin white fingers before giving the tilting monster a threatening strike just inches away from its jaw. It bellowed and immediately dove back towards the centre of the path which was just coming to a rocky stop.

Hopefully, Garnet was hiding among the dense brambles there.

As soon as the bulky creature stumbled on its swollen paws past a wild array of browned bracken a familiar visor-covered face emerged, and quick as lightning she had thrust her powerful gauntlets into the creature's side.

Its cry was silenced by the intense cloud of tawny-coloured dust that caused a small tremor to rock the earth below them.

A marbled brown gem fell to Garnet's feet, rhombus-like in shape.

"Good work, Gems," the fusion congratulated as she bowed to retrieve the vulnerable gem, surrounding it in a bubble and sending it back to the Temple.

" _All right_!" Amethyst whooped, sprinting over to Steven who was just now climbing, or _limping,_ rather up the rocky incline to the hollow where the gems stood. She closed in around him with a victorious bear hug. "Corruption, _none,_ Crystal Gems, _one_!" She hooted triumphantly, throwing a peace sign up with her free hand before retracting from the giggling Steven.

"That corrupted gem was certainly harder to capture than we'd originally thought," Pearl dryly remarked as she put a palm to her temple in exasperation. A small smile twitched onto her lips. "We should have put more thought into the plan. The first four failed miserably."

"Hey, it's not they _failed_!" Steven countered cheekily. He stepped over to Pearl and gave her an innocent look. "It was just that _little ol'_ _Steven isn't quite as good at jumping over large logs and rocks as the others_."

"Yeah, that huge rock that you couldn't climb over was the size of a. . well, a _rock,_ " Amethyst commented from behind. In a flash of brightness Amethyst was gone, replaced by a relatively large purple rock that had eyes looking humorously back up at the other three gems. "Like, this small. It's only up to your chest!"

"Now's no time to be shapeshifting, Amethyst," Pearl chided almost immediately, grabbing Steven by the shoulders and directing him cheerfully towards the path home. "We never know if there's going to be any more corrupted gems coming out of the forest."

Amethyst frowned, unimpressed. "Didn't we just capture the one Garnet picked up?"

"Yeah," Steven chipped in from in front of Pearl, turning give Amethyst a glance. "But remember that Centipeetle and her crew are near here? I mean, they're not. . . _near_ , I think, but they're in the same forest! Apparently this forest is huge! It takes up like, half the continent!" He looked up at Pearl who was beaming down at him approvingly. "Right, Pearl?"

"Actually, it's only forty-eight percent of the continent," Pearl corrected knowingly, retracting her hands from Steven's shoulders as he dramatically _aww'_ d. "Come on, Pearl, I was two percent off!"

Amethyst cackled from behind and jogged up to pace beside Steven, raising her stoutly arms behind her head and giving them a luxurious stretch. " _Two percent_ basically means _too far from the answer_ in Pearl's dictionary."

" _Hmm_ ," Pearl hummed from the front, picking up on the tail end of where the conversation behind her was headed. "Two percent can make a load of difference, Amethyst," Pearl sang as she stepped daintily over a large, upturned root crawling desperately out of the mulch.

"Like how you're two percent more like to-" " _Umph_!" "-trip over that root than you were on the way to the rendezvous."

Amethyst lifted her face from the dirt and gawked at the slim gem smiling good-naturedly down at her, before brushing a hand through her pale lavender mane and pushing it away from her eyes as she hobbled up. Steven laughed beside her before asking if she was all right, which she quickly shoo'd with a " _yeah, yeah. It's just a root, dude_."

Garnet was silent in front of all of them, leading the party home via the nearest warp pad, which unfortunately happened to be a way's away.

An approximate hour of sometimes chatter-filled, sometimes comfortably silent, and sometimes stopping for Steven whose legs were absolutely _killing_ him-Pearl wasn't sure how that was possible, honestly-passed. Soon the warp pad was in their sights.

"Oh thank goodness!" Steven gasped as his feet touched down on the bed of jungle sand surrounding the old warp. "I thought we'd be walking in this jungle _forever_."

"That's impossible, Steven," Pearl said with a small scoff. "Like I corrected before, the jungle only takes up fo-"

"Gems, I'm going to check on something."

Pearl was cut off by Garnet, who had fixed the warp pad with a staid stare. "On what, Garnet?" She asked, strolling over with a bit of worry.

"Nothing large, I'd just like to revisit someplace. I have a hunch," the fusion stated, turning her stoic eyes, or lack thereof, to the other gem.

Pearl hummed in consideration, two fingers coming up to rest on her cheek as she regarded the two Quartzes now gawking to each other and pointing to something in the distance.

"I'll come with you, then."

"It's not necessary."

"And neither is this argument, I'm going with you," Pearl affirmed with a proud glint to her eye. "It's nothing, anyway."

Garnet's visor remained transfixed on her before she _okay_ 'd Pearl's tenacious request with a hum and a hop onto the warp pad.

"Uh, Pearl, Garnet?" Steven piped up, hope ablaze in his eyes as he stared longingly at the abandoned gem ship hidden in the nearby copse before peering back at them. "Can Amethyst and I go see Centipeetle? _Please_? I haven't seen her in so _long_ and I'm wondering how she's doing with all her _crew an-!_ "

"Yes, Steven. You may go check on her," Garnet curtly agreed, raising her right palm to stop the boy's rambling.

"Garnet?" Pearl inquired, looking up to the stoic gem before back at Steven and Amethyst.

"We'll be fine! We're only gonna take a little peek. Right, Steven?" Amethyst jibed, edging Steven's starred gut with her elbow.

"Roger!"

"In that case, please be careful and be _prompt_! We don't know if there's anything else. . _unpleasant._ . wandering around here," Pearl finally relented, sucking at her teeth before letting her bare shoulders droop with defeat. "Garnet and I will be at the Temple in a few moments."

She marched up onto the Warp Pad beside Garnet, giving Steven and Amethyst a final wave farewell and shouting a "be home before we are!" before the blue light evaporated their forms and tossed them to Garnet's desired location.

* * *

The first thing Pearl could make out was the broad outline of sky overhead dug into only by a few aged crystalline spires, complimented by the sounds of restless waves tossing and turning whispering from all directions.

"The Galaxy Warp?"

She looked to Garnet for answers, but only received a small hum of assent as the taller gem left the warp.

She watched her friend amble, in no particular direction, with her visor tilted towards the sky.

Pearl tread off of the pedestal and inspected the disabled warp pads littered across the place, pale blue eyes dark with confusion about why Garnet had wanted to warp _here_ , of all places? They hadn't set foot here since they'd first captured Peridot.

The thought of seeing Peridot clunking around in her old metallic limb enhancers seemed almost comical now, unfitting to her loud and outgoing attitude.

They had tried sending the Shooting Star, a rare and dangerous artifact the Gems had found in the Ice Caverns, over once to demolish the ancient devices once and for all, but their calculations must have been inaccurate.

A brief once-over and the slender gem was ready to dig into what was nagging at Garnet to stay here without a word of explanation.

"What made you want to come here?" Pearl cautioned as she evenly strode over and rested a hand pensively on Garnet's elbow. For a moment, her eyes darkened with concern as she regarded the crumbling Homeworld Warp. "Did your future vision predict something happening?"

Garnet's face depicted nothing, her emotions easily hidden behind the reflective visor. Pearl grimaced slightly, but perked up when Garnet looked down at her.

"I suppose it was nothing," she shrugged nonchalantly. "You shouldn't have insisted on coming for something so minor."

Pearl clasped her delicate hands thoughtfully together as she scrutinized Garnet. Her hand was cupped around her chin.

"Oh, don't worry, Garnet! I'm sure Amethyst and Steven can make it to the Temple on their own," Pearl digressed, chipper, before seeming to register her words and narrow her eyes a bit. "But Steven gets these kinds of impulses all the time, remember? It's better to be safe than sorry." She pointed out reassuringly afterward when she was met with no reply.

She straightened her back as she made her way diligently back to the crystalline warp pad. She hopped onto the smooth slab of bright rock before turning elegantly back towards her friend, brows quirked in curiosity. Garnet hadn't moved but an inch, and was now staring up towards the expanse of unpolluted night sky dancing on above the Galaxy Warp.

"Garnet?"

This seemed to drive the fusion out of her stupor, as she promptly swept a hand across her face as she turned back to face Pearl. "Yes, coming," she acknowledged as she walked back and stood on the pad beside the thin gem.

Pearl beamed at her and willed the warp pad to life, and soon a brilliant blue light engulfed the duo as they were transported safely back within the walls of the beach house.

"Wonderful!" Pearl chirped as she hopped off of the platform and padded purposefully into the middle of the floor. "Now, we've got to make sure that Steven gets to bed early tonight because Connie is planning to come over tomorrow evening for sword training, and someone - most likely me - is going to need to clean the kitchen because it's still an absolute mess after Amethyst. . . "

Garnet, who had not moved since stepping foot upon the warp pad, only gazed after her with apparent stoicism. Now, with all eyes off of her and the only other being in her vicinity already busily swiping down the marble counters, a small frown twisted on her lips.

She remembered boring up to the distant nebulae and the faint speckling of Homeworld's ever-looming galaxy behind them. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, a calamitous thought had broke loose: a vision of a future so terrible and so tragic that her visor had subconsciously vaporized from such a raw wave of feeling.

Only when she heard Pearl's melodious humming as she opened a kitchen drawer to grab out a clean cloth did she snap out of her stupor.

The odds were one in billions upon billions. To think that it actually had a chance of occurring was utterly ridiculous.

Wasn't it?

* * *

 ** _Clack._**

 **That's the sound those clapperboards in the film industry make when the crew cuts a scene, right? Maybe.**

 **Woo! The first chapter's done and over with. I hope you liked it - I enjoyed writing it; I'm honestly just so pumped to push out this story. Stay tuned for the next chapter of this! It should be out soon, I hope. This chapter was fairly shorter than what will be the norm for this story, since I plan to pack much, much more into it. ;)**

 ** _Au revoir_! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey, wow, you kept** **reading** **! I'm blushing, I'm blushing. Anyways, onward! I haven't got much to say now that I've gotten past the initial thrill of pushing through Chapter 1! I can already feel the excitement ebbing and the stress growing.**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Steven Universe. It belongs to Rebecca Sugar!**

* * *

"Keep your left foot a little further out, Connie!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

The tiles of the ancient gem sky arena glinted beneath a golden sun. A lithe shadow flitted skillfully over the smooth surface.

Connie's dark hair was pulled into a neat braid that swung to-and-fro across her back, jolting whenever she would jump forth to thrust or swing back to successfully parry one of the Holo-Pearl's attacks.

Steven watched excitedly from the ancient steps, flip-flops rising and falling as his legs swayed with intrigue.

" _Woohoo_! Go Connie!" The boy cajoled, throwing his arms up and accidentally leaning a bit _too_ far backwards, ending up flopping backwards with a silly ' _pwah_ ' as his head met her thigh. "Hi Garnet."

"Hello Steven," Garnet replied with a tiny smile, reaching out her hands and placing her gems affectionately on either side of the boy's rich, curly head. "I can see you're really enjoying watching Connie fight."

"With your future vision or with your normal vision?" Steven gasped, looking up to the fusion with practical stars of awe in his eyes.

"Normal vision."

" _Aww_."

"But my future vision foretells that you'll be even more excited when Pearl requests she teach Stevonnie a little later," amended Garnet as she leaned over and patted the boy's forehead, amused by the way his pupils dilated and nearly filled out all the white of his eyes. "But don't tell Pearl I told you that."

"Okay!" Steven laughed, a little too loudly with how close the two were, before he shot up and crawled onto Garnet's welcoming lap, flopping down with a huff before turning his eyes back to Connie and the Holo-Pearl. "Looks like she's winning already! It's only been forty seconds or something! That's gotta be a new record!"

"If I'm correct, her best time was twenty-one seconds."

" _Garneeeeet_." Steven playfully tapped the sole of his flip-flop on her leg. " _Oh!_ Oh, look, she's done it!"

Connie had fluidly steered clear of the Holo-Pearl's last futile attempts to seize the opponent and therefore the victory, sliding on the arena's floor smoothly as she swung Rose's sword in a graceful arc and caught the hologram in the middle. It fizzled, admitted defeat with a static-filled " _Challenger Wins_!" before quickly dissipating into ribbons, then nothing.

"Well done, Connie!" Pearl called as she made her way across from the other side of the arena. "That last swing was magnificent! I don't remember teaching you that?" She landed a hand on Connie's shoulder, her eyes alight with both curiosity and stern inquiry as to where Connie had gotten that maneuver from.

"Well, I actually learned it from my tennis coach!"

Surprise overtook Pearl's face. "Oh?"

"It was a tennis move. Kind of. I just changed it up a bit! Sometimes you have to lunge to hit the tennis ball with your racquet, ma'am," started Connie, "and I thought it could also be incarnated into my swordfighting if I ever need to make a last-minute move and can't parry."

"Hmm," Pearl acknowledged, nodding her head understandingly. "I see. Though let's try to make sure you can always parry, all right? We don't want an event where you can't deflect an enemy's sword and you're caught between a rock and a hard place."

"Yes, Pearl!" Connie smiled politely before turning to see Steven clambering down the stone steps of the arena.

Steven scrambled off of the last step and rushed towards Connie, embracing the dark-skinned girl in a fervent hug. "That was amazing, Connie! It was advanced and it still didn't even land a scratch on you!"

Pearl chuckled from behind them. "I should hope not. I've recalibrated the holograms to be much less. . . _dangerous_ , after my last regeneration," the willowy gem offered, placing a hand absentmindedly over her stomach where the old Holo-Pearl's blade had struck through. Steven shuddered at the memory.

"So, in theory, they really shouldn't be able to land a scratch on anything," Pearl finished, summoning a hologram briefly and willing it to slowly bow its thin sword and make contact with her open palm. It phased easily through, and by Pearl's unchanging features it was obviously a feat she had practiced and worked well with before bestowing it upon Stevonnie.

The hologram emitted a cry of " _Challenger Defeated!_ " with a request for a rematch, but the query was cut short as Pearl summoned her spear and jabbed the Holo-Pearl squarely in the abdomen. "Any further questions?" She said, tucking her spear away into her gem for future use.

"Oh! Pick me!" Steven raised his arm, utterly beside himself now as he, in his zest, accidentally summoned his shield.

"Yes, Steven?"

"Can Connie and I form Stevonnie? I wanna do the cool tennis move she did, too!"

Connie laughed. Garnet inwardly smiled; Pearl never would have asked for Stevonnie to fuse in any immediate futures, so it had required a bit of coaxing to push that particular path into the light.

Pearl swapped her gaze between the two of them, pursing her lips before giving in and rolling her shoulders in acceptance. "I don't see any reason why not."

"All right!" The children said in unison, turning towards each other and high-fiving with goofy grins. "We're gonna be great!"

After a few moments of initial dancing turned simple synchronized hand-holding, a pink light briefly engulfed the two and suddenly in their places stood Stevonnie, proudly wielding both Rose's shield and legendary sword. "Let's do this thing," they said with a spirited smirk.

* * *

Garnet watched Stevonnie with zeal, once again donning the sign she had created for them months ago when they had unfused because of Connie's emotional peril. Now, though, the fusion, if anything, looked whole and stable and well. They abstained from even giving the Holo-Pearls a chance to take a swing. They were proficient as they took down two of the holograms with a broad sweep of the large pink sword, knocking a third off-balance with a hefty shove of their shield.

Stevonnie truly was a remarkable experience, Garnet thought as she watched them take down a fourth by hindering its ability to move by locking its knee into place with their own foot, and thrusting the other in a powerful manner into the hologram's chest. It flew past Pearl, who cheered them on with words of encouragement. "You're doing incredible! This is the best I've ever seen, Stevonnie! Keep it up!"

Stevonnie swung their head and flashed a pleased smile at the pale gem. They took off again in the direction of another phalanx of Holo-Pearls just summoned to reinstigate the mock battle session.

Garnet's eyes traced every step Stevonnie took, how every individual finger tightened around Rose's sword when bracing the weapon for impact with one of the illusionary enemies. Instead of jabbing one directly in its abdomen, as it would have been easy to do, Stevonnie instead twirled on their bare feet and promptly sliced through the set of-

Gems.

Garnet's eyes widened beneath her visor as, for what felt like eternity but could very well have been only the mere fraction of a second, the calm sky arena was washed in an eerie green light. Dark, swollen shadows loomed in crooked streaks over the tiles, now sprinkled with a fine layer of multicoloured dust.

Stevonnie stood where they had previously, except where the Holo-Pearls had stood there were the silhouetted, shaking bodies of gem soldiers.

Homeworld Quartz soldiers.

No details could be discerned other than their signature builds, which were swiftly poofed when their sword cut through the gems like a knife through butter.

In an instant, it was gone.

Stevonnie had done away with the last of the Holo-Pearls, now brandishing their sword with a holler of victory and raising it above their head with a jocular laugh. Pearl, too, was speeding over and commending Stevonnie on a job well-done. Stevonnie thankfully grabbed a hold of Pearl's hand and gave it a happy squeeze as they turned to Garnet with a grin.

Said fusion seemed to catch Garnet's earnest expression, which was generally much more full of enthusiasm during their fusion training. "Garnet?" They asked, losing the grin and tilting their head worriedly.

"That's me," Garnet confirmed as she stood and jumped down the flight of steps and landed cleanly in front of Pearl and Stevonnie. "I was just thinking about how well you handled that," she pondered, before joining her hands in a familiar motion that Stevonnie gladly mirrored: thumbs touching, with fingers cupped supportively over one another.

The stance their hands had assumed when the fusions discussed the balance of fusion altogether, of how one counterpart's instability worried at its wholeness.

Pearl let the two have their moment before meaningfully clearing her throat, rocking on her dainty heels. "Now, I think it's time that Steven and Connie work individually again. We know that you're impeccable, Stevonnie, but I want to see if that still translates into separated." Pearl laced her hands together and pointed at the fusion expectantly, aqua eyes broad with hope.

"Of course!" Stevonnie agreed.

Stevonnie with Steven and Connie separating with only a single dazzle of rose-tinged light, catching each other as they fell with a giggly laugh.

Pearl chirped with a satisfied hum and turned to her leader. "Garnet, you're welcome to stay and watch."

"I think I have business at the Temple that needs tending to," she clarified, much to the dismay of Steven who looked up at her with wide, sad eyes.

She looked down to Steven and his puppy-dog eyes, offering a small smile. "Very important business."

He seemed to understand, because he nodded with a determined huff and wished her good-bye.

"You two keep it up," the fusion said with the small smile still on as she started down the steps leading to the warp pad at the edge of the ruins.

It didn't take long to have that smile fall into an anxious frown.

Garnet looked back up the flight of steps as she reached the warp, eyes growing dim beneath her visor as she adjusted it. She willed herself to search for something, _anything_ , that could deflect the path fate seemed to be taking. She sighed and rested her visor on her nose before stepping onto the warp pad and returning to the Temple.

* * *

Steven padded down the wooden steps to the beach house, chuckling to himself at the comfortable warmth spreading across his exposed neck, arms, and feet. The sand engulfed his sandals as he elatedly trotted across the stretch of beach separating him from Beach City.

 _"I wonder what Lars and Sadie are up to,"_ he mused to himself as he absentmindedly watched the sand shift between his shuffling feet. _"I haven't seen them in ages! There's been so much going on."_

The Big Donut stood as he had always remembered it in all its snack-y, donut-y glory. The sprinkles on the gargantuan donut display on top of the pink-and-blue patterened roof seemed to sparkle in the noontime sun.

He wasted no time in scraping the sand from the ripples in his soles and bursting in through the door, his arrival met with a loud _ching_.

The short, heavyset Sadie sitting behind the counter seemed to have snapped to life at the bell chiming. Once they met eyes, Sadie's face lit up with sunny realization. "Hey Steven!" The clerk greeted, leaning as far over the counter as she could to welcome in the boy. "Where've you been? I haven't seen you in weeks!"

"Sadie!" Steven jovially answered, scampering up to the counter and staring up at the older human with wide, dark, and hopeful eyes. "I've been really busy doing gem stuff! I mean, some stuff around town, but, mostly gem things!"

The boy's ramblings were interrupted by his gut emanating a particularly angry grumble. He placed a pudgy hand over his stomach, sending Sadie a sheepish grin as he quirked his eyebrows humorously. "And all that gem stuff means I haven't had my favourite snack in weeks, either. Two chocolate donuts, please!"

"Sure thing, Steven. Extra sprinkles?"

Steven felt a flush of fondness for Sadie pulse through his body, and he placed a hand on his heart playfully as he whispered, "you remembered!"

He bounced on his toes as he tried to watch the clerk bow down to retrieve his fresh, beautiful baked dough from the tantalizing glass cabinet behind. "I don't know what it is, but all those fake chemicals just make it that much tastier."

"As you've said before," laughed Sadie, grabbing the tongs and dropping two fresh donuts into a paper bag for Steven. She turned back, a small smile on her face as she dropped the bag into the boy's grabbing hands. "That'll be $3.39."

Steven leaned away and palmed through his pockets, fetching the three crumpled dollars and two quarters.

"Well, would you look who it is!"

Steven stopped in his tracks as the sound of a door swinging open followed by Lars' signature snicker flooded the room.

"Lars!" Cried the younger boy, payment forgotten, dropping his bag of delicious goodies on the floor of the establishment and rushing up to the lanky employee.

"Steven," said employee regarded, giving the boy a predictably questioning, and a little hostile, stare. "What've you been gone off to?" Lars asked, a low curl in his lip. "Usually you come to bug us way more often."

"I was out with the Gems!"

"What a surprise."

Sadie from behind the counter scoffed at Lars' contemptuous disposition. "Come on, Lars, lay off," she chastised. "He's really happy to see us after so long."

"Tragically the feeling isn't reciprocated," the tanned clerk grumbled sarcastically.

"Lars!"

"That's okay! Just seeing you makes up for all the lost time!" Steven consoled.

Lars grumbled and shoved the small boy off of his thin leg. "Yeah, yeah, now shove off." Sadie sent the taller employee a rather flustered and disappointed glare.

"Anyway. . ." Steven beamed, unshaped by Lars' irritability. "I've really gotta get back to the Gems now."

He rushed over to the short girl and wrapped his chubby arms merrily around her, met with a soft gasp of surprise. "Haha, yeah, see you later, Steven."

He skipped back and snatched the bag of donuts off the counter top with a, "bye Lars, bye Sadie!" before rushing to the door and stopped only by Sadie's panicked, "Steven, wait!"

He skidded to a stop, eyes wide with confusion as he stared back into the Big Donut. "What is it?"

"You forgot to pay."

* * *

Steven unwrapped the delicate wax film paper protecting the donut. _"Oh, glazed dough and chocolate frosting topped with sprinkles, how I missed you!"_ He was so ready to relish in this treat that he could practically hear the donut calling his name.

"Steven? Steven."

No, wait, that was Pearl.

"Huh? Oh, sorry Pearl."

The boy looked up and saw Pearl taking deliberate steps towards the couch where he'd plopped down as soon as he marched in the screen door.

"It's all right," Pearl mused. "I wanted to ask how it went with. . . Centipeetle, yesterday. Amethyst hasn't spared me any details and Garnet's not left her room much since returning from the Gal- mission."

"Gala mission?" Perplexed Steven, tilting his head and halting the pastry's entry into his mouth. Where would there have been a mission at a gala?

"Oh, no, I just meant the mission. No galas involved," Pearl chuckled, a bead of sweat threatening to trickle down her forehead. "But really, how was your. . friend?"

Steven was all smiles as he explained to Pearl how he and Amethyst had gotten into the old colony ship and found the little group of amiable corrupted gems. Amethyst wasn't able to tell the difference between the crew and captain, but Steven was quick to distinguish his Centi from the others.

"And then Amethyst shape-shifted into one of them! They were a little scared of her, though. They kept making this creepy gargling noise so Amethyst just shifted back."

Steven put a finger to his lips as he recalled the scene. Steven had been enthusiastic to see Amethyst coercing with Centipeetle and her crew; it was saddening to see that it had the kind of ramifications neither of them had aimed for. "I think they got a little offended?"

"Well, she shouldn't have been shape-shifting like that in the first place," Pearl commented warily. "It's one thing to use the power so carelessly, and other to use it to look for something so. . . "

Steven squinted up at the slim white gem. "Something so what, Pearl?"

Pearl sighed. "Nothing, Steven. I just don't think it's right for Amethyst to copy them. They're corrupted - their forms are wrong, and they're not in their right mind."

"They're not wrong, Pearl! Just a little different, is all," the boy argued as Pearl finally sat down on the couch beside him, rolling into the cushions as he pulled himself towards her and gave her a look of earnest.

"But they're not really corrupted like the other corruptions are!" Defended Steven, defiantly placing his arms on the star over Pearl's flat chest. "They didn't even think of attacking us."

"You don't know that, Steven."

"Yes, I do! 'Cause Centipeetle was their captain."

Pearl had the urge to shake her head in light crossness. It was difficult to explain corruption, let alone what the wretched _curse,_ or _whatever_ it was _,_ had done to the gems Steven was trying to defend.

Their endless hunts for corrupted gems left them little room to think of them as former gems: as walking, talking, _feeling_ gems.

The gem felt her chest concave with mortification. _"They're not like that anymore. We're doing the most we can do bubbling them."_

She looked down and reflected on how quick Steven always was to sympathize with the beasts.

Regardless of what she personally thought of souls lost to corruption, she acknowledged that Centipeetle truly was different from the rest.

"I suppose. She did seem to be quite fond of you," Pearl murmured.

Steven made a pleased sound and turned, training his eyes on the few scraps of napkin and the forgotten donut strewn about the coffee table. He slid down and twisted around until his thick shoulder pressed against her side, eyes suddenly downcast.

"I wish I could have saved her."

A thrill ran up Pearl's spine.

Rose had said that once.

She had tried so, so many times to save those corrupted.

She had felt true grief over the Crystal Gems lost to corruption. On numerous occasions she had tried to heal them, but never once did her healing powers extend enough to save the lost gem from the Diamond's clutches.

In the end, she had decided to bubble the creatures. It was for their own safety, and for the safety of the other life inhabiting planet Earth.

They always promised themselves that they would try to find a cure for it.

They never really did find the time to try more than a handful of times. Maybe because they knew it was hopeless.

Steven had been the only gem to ever. . . _lessen,_ the corruption. But in the end, Steven had been unable to fully save her from the Diamonds.

Pearl imagined what it would have been like if the Crystal Gem army had been spared from their corrupting song. Or if there had been a way to reverse the effects, fully.

She hugged Steven just a little bit closer to her with her left arm, tucking her pale chin into his curly brown locks as she let out a despondent sigh.

"Me too."

* * *

 **Note to self: don't write about donuts when hungry. It makes you even hungrier. Yo, and I promise some interesting stuff will kick off soon! I just didn't want to rush it, y'know? This is a slow-burn story, after all. The chapters will get longer as it goes on, too, promise.**

 **In any case, I'll be drawin' covers for each chapter (. . . _probably_ ) on my Tumblr if you're interested. It's rileys-universe !**

 **Seeya next chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

**[ _Sniff_ ] I can't believe people are reading this, geez. I'm getting emotional. Also, my friend is evil because she torments me about when I'll finish this thing. I only just _starteeeeed._**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Steven Universe! It belongs to Rebecca Sugar.**

* * *

"There's evidence that points to a corrupted gem in the eastern hemisphere," Garnet relayed to Pearl, balancing her visor with an adept tilt of her dark wrist as she regarded Pearl, who was studying the map they had laid out over the kitchen countertop.

The blue and white gem gently traced her fingers over the surface of the faded Earth map. Ever since visiting the Diamond Moon Base with Peridot all that time ago, they had marked down the locations of each original gem construction with red marker. Peering at each individual crimson dot made Pearl recall just why she had vowed to save Earth.

Her index absently rested on the location Garnet had suspected gem monster activity.

"We've not seen activity there in decades," she noted anxiously. "I'd say that it's near the old gem orchestral temple," she added, tapping the single speck before lifting her eyes up to Garnet.

"It should be a simple mission, then. We're familiar enough with the vicinity to capture and bubble the gem without too much trouble." Garnet brought a broad hand to her visor and gave it a judgmental flick over the nose. The light that caught on its exterior turned more reddish when she leaned back up, a hand cocked on her hip.

"Then let's not waste any time," Pearl ushered. She neatly rolled the map onto itself and wrapped the aged red drawstring around it, I know there are small human settlements littered about the temple; I still can't fathom why they were so adamant to build there a couple hundred years ago."

She tucked the map into her gem and faced Garnet, before giving the beach house a curt examination. If they left without explaining themselves, it was likely that Steven would fret and get worked up over the sudden lack of a certain Pearl and Garnet. "I'm going to tell Steven and Amethyst so they don't worry where we-"

"No need," intervened Garnet. "I found Amethyst beforehand and let her know we'll be gone for a bit."

"How clever of you, Garnet!" Trilled Pearl as she wound her way around the counter and towards the warp pad, followed closely by her friend. "Come on, I'll warp us there."

"Off to the mountain palace we go," the shorter of the two declared as coruscating blue light engulfed them and warped them to their next destination.

It wasn't where Garnet had expected them to be.

They were on the warp pad on Temple's Sapphire gem, overseeing the beach as evening sun poured over the ocean.

The gentle _ding-ding_ of the laundry machines tucked behind the mossy stone thumb caught her attention.

"Pearl?" She asked, brows raised behind her shades with arms crossed questioningly at the gem stepping off the platform to open the contraption.

The fusion was met with a sheepish little smile.

"I need to unload Steven's things from the dryer before we go. We know Amethyst isn't going to do it."

* * *

The sounds of flip-flops and light sneakers pattering against the sand-crusted boardwalk rose into the air, outclassed only by the occasional giggle as the two humans made way towards the nearest empty bench.

Steven flopped down first with a silly _pwah._ Connie followed but was more seemly as she threw herself onto the wooden boards, laughing as Steven wiggled onto his behind while trying to save the container of fry bits he clutched in his hand.

"And _safe_!" The boy crowed, shooting his arms up with rejoice.

He quickly realized his error when the fry bits flew out from the little paper basket.

" _Ah_! No!" He yipped, stretching his small arms out in a vain attempt to catch the falling, burnt bits of starch.

Connie, fortunately, managed to catch two in her palm while another landed on top of her head. Steven only managed one.

"Aww. . . the _bits_. . " Crooned Steven as he dropped mournfully to his denim-clad knees, a dramatic sniffle making his back shudder. "How I will miss thee."

It only took a few seconds for the birds to come in.

" _Uh oh_ \- Steven, I think you'd better-"

" _Aaaaaah!_ " Steven jolted up from his knees, waving his arms in a failed attempt at intimidating the foul bird demons away.

 _"Ya! Ya!_ " He bayed. "Go on, get outta here!" He waved the empty fry carton at the impeding seagulls threateningly.

He quickly regretted this ill-considered decision when three of the grey birds turned on him, beady eyes flashing hot-headedly as they dived for the fry bit clutched in between his thumb and index.

" _Gah!_ No! Bad birdies- stop!" He started to jog around the bench where Connie was proceeding to laugh her lungs dry. "Connie, help! They're after me!"

"I-I can't," she wheezed. "They're just- waddling after you! They want the ridiculous amount of carbohydrates!"

"If they had hands they'd be snapping right now! I'm in a very serious predicament, Connie!"

"Just sacrifice your last bit! It's the only way!"

"How can I? We've got a special bond! It's the only one that came back to me after all it went through!"

"All that _you_ put it through!"

" _Nn_. . . _fine_! Take it!" He threw the last now-soggy fry bit over his head. It flew away into the cracks between the wooden floor boards.

Two of the birds saw that the opportunity was destroyed, and cawed their frustration before beating their plumy wings and taking off. The third, however, simply tottered up to Steven's sandal. It gave his big toe an annoyed peck before flying off.

"Ah! It pecked me!" He lifted the assaulted foot and teetered at the unbalance, rubbing his toe tenderly and _shh_ 'ing its silent weeping. " _Shh_ , _shh_ , it's okay. The mean birdie's gone and flown away."

Connie wiped the last of the moisture collecting at the ends of her eyes away. " _Oh my gosh_ ," she exhaled, a ragged laugh spilling out instead. "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Steven jumped up onto the bench beside the young girl, lifting up the foot to protectively cradle it with his hands. The toe stung just a bit. He tapped it thoughtfully before blowing out his cheeks. "The best performance ever: we had a sacrifice, a chase, a defeat, and. . "

Theatrically, Steven fell back against the curved wooden planks, closing his eyes as he gripped painfully at the yellow star embroidered into his shirt. " _Death_."

Connie fell right into the interplay, shuffling onto her bare knees as she placed her hands worriedly on Steven's shoulders. "Oh no, what ever will I do? With my beloved Steven- _eth_ fallen into death. . _.eth_." She folded in on herself, lithe brown fingers clenching the fabric of her fallen friend's shirt in woe.

"And by some miraculous feat, Steven is alive!" The boy shouted, jolting upward and practically throwing Connie off of him, playfully nudging her as he tucked his legs criss-cross applesauce.

"It's a miracle!"

The two calmed down, occasionally breaking into giggles over the hilarious dilemma Steven had just fallen sufferer to.

"Gee," Steven finally managed to find the vocal strength to say without breaking into a spree of chuckles. "At least the local birdies were fed. . even if they wanted to eat my toe." He raised his leg and wiggled the pinkish toe for emphasis.

"Maybe they thought they were fry bits."

"Do I look like a potato to you?"

"Do you want me to answer that?"

". . . No. . "

"Well-thought, my friend."

Steven huffed good-naturedly and tucked his knee up to his chest. "So what's been goin' on in the Wondrous Life o' Connie? I haven't seen much of you outside of swordfighting practice since today!"

"Oh, nothing big, really," Connie confessed, throwing her dark hair over her white collared tee. "I had a pretty cool tennis match a couple nights ago- our team lost, but, it was a really good tournament! And everyone at school's talking about that meteor shower, so it's gotten just a little more interesting over there."

Steven's eyes boggled. "Meteor shower?"

Connie's eyes lit up. "Yeah! I aced a Pre-AP geometry test and my mom and dad let me watch an extra twenty minutes!" The dark-skinned girl straightened up on the bench, hands clenching the planks beneath them. "Under the Knife wasn't on anymore so I just switched to some news channel - and there were reports of a few meteors crashing down near the Himalayas!"

Steven pictured asteroids pelting towards Earth, feeling a cold balloon of remorse expand in his chest, blighting his happy mood as he imagined if the Rubies. . .

He mentally shook himself.

"Has anyone found them yet?" He probed. If there was anything coming blasting in from space, even if it was just a few little stones, he was sure the Gems would want to hear about it. They seemed leery of just about anything entering their orbit!

But, honestly, he could understand where they were coming from when they got all scared about it.

The last few things to come from outer space hadn't exactly been the most convivial.

"No. They can't quite seem to find anything about where they landed!" Connie admitted, face crestfallen as she frowned. She was puzzled. "It's kinda weird, don't you think? Usually the space program's right on top of that stuff."

" _Hmm_ ," the half-gem mumbled, giving the grassy backside of the Temple an introspective look from afar. "Maybe I should tell the gems?"

Connie let out a single laugh before registering the innocent consternation on Steven's face. "I wouldn't worry about it, Steven! Officials are confirming that it was just a couple of rocks."

"And you believe them?" Steven accused, thick eyebrows knitting suspiciously together as he focused on his best friend. "Don't you know the government likes to cover things up?"

Connie met Steven's gaze evenly. Her features dropped out of mirth and morphed at an inhumane rate into an expression of someone who's been haunted by the whole of the CIA themselves. "We don't speak of that. Now here, not now. They have eyes _everywhere_."

Steven locked eyes with the girl's. Hers were unblinking, earnest, and seemed to bore right into his very _soul._

 _"Oh. Oh no."_

She wanted to do this? Now? At this very moment? In front of all this. . . _sand_?

 _"Challenge accepted."_

He parroted her expression of solemnity with one of his own, eyes narrowing his eyes.

 _"I'm gonna win, I'm gonna. . . "_ He thought, heart rate seeming to accelerate the longer he returned Connie's dark stare.

It lasted for about five and a half seconds.

The two kids sustained their stern faces and unwavering eyes before they buckled down laughing, grabbing for each other to stop themselves from tumbling off of the boardwalk bench.

 _"Yeah, it was probably nothing."_

* * *

The warp was ten miles away from the musical temple.

Snow-topped mountains rose in emboldened glory encompassing the old gem structure, grown over in luscious seas of green forests. It was a grandeur palace sadly blemished by time, its walls crumbling and vines that snaked hungrily around its walls.

The ancient construction had been built prior to the rebellion, a place for gems of high nobility and notable status to allow gems to flaunt and sing and dance.

Alas, any recreation on Homeworld was quickly forgotten and discouraged once it was decreed by the Diamonds that more and more gems be put to war and more soldiers be created.

It made Pearl's chest ache at the thought.

As the two Crystal Gems made haste in through the giant old doors, studded with lifeless crystals long since drained of any gem magic they may have once retained, they entered the grand hall.

A worn stage beneath a diamond-shaped proscenium stretched out before them, revealed to light for the first time in what could have possibly been ages. Dust motes swirled and flaunted in the faded grey sunlight peeking in from behind the gems as they walked further inside.

An eerie quiet settled over the settlement, kept only at bay by the small cacophony of cicadas that probably hid in the thick growth crowding the edges of the theatre.

Pearl's feet tapped mildly across the cracked floor tiles as she inspected a row of decor: cracked sculptures depicting gems that were created solely for the purpose of enlightening the noble. They had been gems of many shape, size, and colour, as Pearl could recall. Depending on which Diamond they were created for, their general elements, powers, and personalities would vary to appease to the desired audience.

She wondered if they were even made anymore, what with Homeworld holding militarism and conquering other worlds in such a high regard.

"Pearl, take the left wing."

Pearl startled with a yelp, nearly dropping the instrumental relic she'd been listlessly inspecting in her palms onto the floor. Beneath Garnet's unwavering stare she placed the remains back on their crumpling stand.

"On it," the gem acceded as she summoned her trident from her gem.

After a moment of decision she reignited her gem to let a beam of pale white light bathe the area immediately in front of her. All the better to not crash into any old gem vestiges and scare away the possible corrupted gem that may linger in these old halls.

The thought of finding a monster among the old remnants of an old Homeworld occupation grounded her.

Aside from dust bunnies that, impressively, were Steven-sized and the occasional Earth wildlife that had found homes nestled within the deep nooks and crevices of the ancient orchestral house, there was nothing of importance to find.

Pearl stopped after an approximate eighteen minutes of silent scrutiny and unimportant finds.

Garnet's readings had confirmed that there was corruption activity scourging these parts; and while they were never able to predict where it may reside, as each beast was different, they were generally good at locating them in record timing. It was an adapted skill that came with hunting them for thousands of years.

Springing from room to room proved meticulous enough for even Pearl to grow flustered at the profound lack of _corrupted gem evidence_.

She had just leaned against a table that groaned beneath the new weight when she heard a light panting echo through the corridor she stood in.

Her hands tightened intently around the shaft of her spear before assuming a soundless stalk towards the direction of the noise.

The sounds grew stronger and stronger until Pearl had entered what seemed to be an unremarkable barren room. Tables laid against the walls, though deep cuts were set into stone. Old gem figurines were scattered across the floor, some shattered into pathetic pieces and others cracked and mauled beyond recognition.

In the left corner of the room, as she cautiously pored over her surroundings, a sage green claw scraped at the fractured floor.

She shut off her light.

From what little natural light poured into the room, she could make out the fuzzy silhouette of a corrupted gem. Mottled spikes stuck out of its untamed shock of hair, and its claws seemed to scrape miserably at the ground underfoot as though trying to dig through.

Unlike other corruptions the Gems had faced in recent decades, its exterior seemed. . . to be pulsating. The welts that covered its fur shuddered and frisked about like living tattoos, seeming to continue expanding in size and changing in colour.

Her teeth dug tautly into her lower lip as she kneaded the spear in trepidation. She'd need to exercise extreme caution with this thing, as it just. . . wasn't the _same_ as other corruptions, she felt. Something was inflating in her mind with the absurd thought that. . .

Something was really wrong with it.

She approached it carefully, noting its obliviousness to her presence.

Its face slowly shifted towards her, and she held the breath in her throat she didn't need hitched.

Instead of becoming aggressive, however, it only regarded her with an eyeless, mane-covered face before emitting a low-pitched whimper and continuing to scrabble at the floor.

As soon as Pearl's spear caught a glint of light seeping in through the small cracks bruising the walls, it all changed.

The corrupted gem burst up from its spot in the corner, its wild white hair exploding into a whirlwind mane of fear. A blood-curdling cry ripped from its jaws as it charged Pearl, who readily spun her trident and called for Garnet.

There was no use keeping quiet now that the brawl had just begun anyway.

Surprisingly, the beast averted collision with the trident-wielder, turning just quickly enough to avoid getting more than a scratch along its blotched flanks.

Pearl growled and regained her bearings, throttling after the furry monster with renewed assertion. Not seconds after the chase had begun did Garnet appear, blocking the mutant's tunnel exit from the assailing Pearl.

"Pearl, now!"

Both Crystal Gems charged towards the beast with the aim of digging in their weapons and poofing its form without further trouble.

Garnet's gauntlets charged while Pearl's spear angled for an accurate penetration into its unruly mane.

The beast, in what felt like only a single human heartbeat, dived away from both enemies and crashed headfirst into the nearest wall. Twilight broke through from the outside, causing both The aged handiwork crumbled beneath the new external force, sending huge chunks of stone and metal crashing to the ground after the creature.

It never stopped its wailing, even as it ran away.

"After it!" Garnet shouted.

Garnet and Pearl broke through the din of wreckage and sprinted after the fleeing monster with impeccable speeds.

They zig-zagged through the mountainous forest, following the trail of crushed detritus left in the fleeing beast's wake.

At long last, fate seemed to favor the Crystal Gems' chances at capturing the thing, for it presented them with a huge cliff that luckily curved just far enough to each side to prevent the creature from making an expeditious escape.

It tentatively approached a strange bulge of growth just beside the cliff wall, bedecked by broken branches and toppled upon by disrupted shelves of stone.

It cried with renewed fright as it turned and noticed the Gems climbing over the hill.

With no choice but to retaliate, the green creature spun around and screamed a horrible howl at its pursuers. It barreled for Garnet first.

Its first mistake was turning its back to Pearl, who had launched from her place on the top of the verdant debris and landed on its back, digging her spear tip in until, in one massive rush of dust and wind, the beast was defeated.

Pearl dropped to the rough sands in an elegant crouch, huffing as she did away with her spear.

She picked up the square-shaped olivine gem, staring at its speckled sage-green surface before dutifully surrounding it in a pale blue bubble.

"There we go," she sighed, relieved. "That wasn't so bad, was it, Garnet? Although, I think something was a little off about. . " She looked up to her leader, eyes sharpening with inquisition. "Garnet?"

But Garnet wasn't looking at her.

Or the bubble that held the odd gem either.

"Garnet?"

Unyielding, Garnet moved past Pearl and towards the misshapen lump of broken vegetation that the beast had inspected before turning on the Gems.

Pearl's lips tightened as she sent the bubble back to the Temple and jogged in beside Garnet, reaching out to touch her shoulder pad before the fusion's arms shot out, and her own shot back in with a surprised " _oh_!"

The fusion pried the broken boughs off first, slowly at first, before picking up her speed.

 _"What on Earth is she. . "_

Her teeth were bared, Pearl noticed.

Garnet ardently swung her gauntlets and caught on the thick tangle of creepers that shrouded the object beneath. She snapped them with a resounding grunt before grabbing the torn ferns and frayed chaparral beneath and spreading them aside.

Garnet froze.

Pearl gasped in horror.

Behind the thick screen of vegetation, a smoking gem pod laid, abandoned, cockpit emptied of its former inhabitant.

* * *

 **. . . Yes. Or is the more appropriate thing to say _oops_? Sorry? ****Nah, I'll keep yes.  
** _ **It sounds funnier.**_

 **Anyways, see y'all around next chapter! Hopefully it'll be out soon, the weekend's nigh!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey there, and welcome back to Hope of Morning!**

 **Hope you've enjoyed it so far - if you have, please leave a review or something to let me know it's getting to people who really like what I'm pumping out! Feedback's always a surefire way to motivate me to finish stuff faster.**

 **I'd like to point out that I'm including a lot of personal head-canons in this story, as well as some unconfirmed information. Like, from gem hierarchy shenanigans to what kind of gem does what, yada, yada. Anyway, yeah. Nice.**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Steven Universe! Rebecca Sugar does.**

* * *

The wreaths of greenish smoke seeping lazily out through the dents and cracks in the pod's exterior were dull and weak, suggesting that the injuries afflicted upon the vessel had been some time ago.

But it couldn't have been more than forty-eight hours, judging from the still rising wisps of smoke and the awful soot marks that scorched the cliff wall behind it.

Both Garnet and Pearl stood motionless, fixated upon the small aircraft in soundless horror.

"Wh-Wh. . What is it doing here? It can't possibly be a. . a Homeworld pod, ha-ha! That's _ridiculous_ , they have no reason to. . " Pearl's shaky voice twittered out of audible range as her hands clasped in dismay over her lips.

There shouldn't have been a reason for Homeworld to be invading now.

Her eyes sought to the sky, as though simply looking up would burden her with the sight of thousands of similar vessels soaring across the great dusk. Luckily, there was no such thing going on overhead. But it didn't help to alleviate the boiling sensation of trepidation that threatened to let the floodgates release with a wail of helplessness.

Pearl took a subconscious step away from the pod. "It can't be. . ."

"Pearl, help me remove these branches."

The slight gem's form perked in alarm, rheumy eyes blinking viciously to will away the tears. She hurried over, hands usually so controlled and carefully placed fiddling messily with the debris littering the pod.

"Yes, of course."

The thin gem's vocal cords failed her as she worked beside Garnet, working to remove all the excess debris showered over the pod, and revealing it in a fuller light to the Crystal Gems.

It had a dull green shell, dented and bruised from a harsh impact with human terrain. It lacked a glass hood, much like that of Peridot's escape pod from long ago, and Pearl assumed that it was an automatic electric seal. Some contents laid smashed within the cockpit, others laying in ruin on the ground.

An unspecified object seemed to draw Pearl's eyes toward it. There were strange symbols carved into its twisted, broken surface. They seemed to be written in a language that _looked_ like Gem, but Pearl couldn't seem to translate - it gave her a little headache trying, actually. As well as a fierce case of shuddering to match.

Not that she wasn't already shaking like a brittle leaf in the middle of an autumn windstorm.

Garnet's gauntlets glittered as they increased in size, fixing themselves with an iron grip on either side of the capsule. "We need to bring it back to examine," she stated simply and gave a mighty heave.

The pod became dislodged from the sheer cliff face. A few loose clumps of yellow stone fell from above at the sudden movement, making Pearl summon another spear to deflect one of the falling pieces of terrain.

The pod gave an undignified groan as the unearthly metal settled.

"Garnet! We don't even know what it's here for," Pearl argued. "Or. . who was flying it, or-"

"Which is exactly why we need to study it closer," countered the fusion.

All that came out of Pearl was an impotent whimper.

"I. . I can't even make out what type of pod it is," Pearl half-heartedly divulged as she crouched in front of it. "I can certainly _try_ to open it up and descry any information I can out of it," she added, reaching her hand into the open-air cockpit but pulling it back like an insect had stung her. "Yet it's not even reacting. I think it may be too far gone to-"

Garnet cut Pearl off by placing a disarmed hand on her shoulder. "We both know someone who can work with this."

The pale gem looked up into the other's reflective visor, swallowing down her agony and nodding complacently.

"Let's hope she knows what to do," she whispered, voice raw.

* * *

"Can you try holding a little more still?"

"You're pulling at my hair, Lapis!"

"No, I'm _styling_ it."

Peridot's features sunk into an uncomfortable grimace as she tucked her nose into her interlocked arms, grumbling about the inefficiency of the human cosmetic system. Why did every technique humankind had created, each and every single one, seem to inflict the receiver _pain_ of some sort?

Peridot wasn't even human, for Diamond's sake.

Shouldn't she be get some sort of alien loophole?

Veggie Head was settled drowsily across Peridot's crossed legs, his creeping tail flicking irritably whenever Peridot would jump or jolt when Lapis did something a little too rough for her barn mate's liking.

Frankly, the little green gem was scared to even see what she would look like. Thank all the stars in the sky that they never kept mirrors around.

It was after another few sounds of clamps closing, hair pulling, and a breathless squeaking on Peridot's part that Lapis crawled around and gave Peridot an examination from the front.

"Hmm. . ."

Sweat beaded on Peridot's brow as she wondered exactly what the dubious _hmm_ meant. "What? What is it?"

"I'm going to need to add a few more of the hair clips," the blue gem mused, taking a swift dive to the right to rifle through the little basket of hair cosmetic products the two had. . . _borrowed_. . . from a nearby hair salon. When she pulled back, a few blue hair pins were tucked between her slight fingers.

"Are you sure you need more?" Stressed Peridot, wringing her hands worriedly. "I mean, you've already used half the-"

"I'm sure. To make it look like it does in the manga, this is a _requirement_." She fixed Peridot with a quiet look, before her eyes drifted up to the gem's yellow mess of a hairdo and snorted. "And that means you've got to put up with this for a little while longer."

" _Nehh_."

Lapis chuckled as she dove around the grumpy gem. "That's the spirit!"

The next few minutes were horrible. Not only did Veggie Head decide that Peridot's squirming was too much to deal with and run off, but Peridot was certain Lapis was going to poof her at this point.

"Curse humans and their unnecessary needs to modify their appearances with. . weird. . human. . _tools._ . " She mumbled at one point, met with a mock gasp of offense from the water gem behind her. "Peri, I'm hurt."

"Actually, _I'm_ the one hurting."

"Well, it shouldn't be for long," Lapis consoled semi-apologetically as she gave Peridot an inspiriting pat on the head. "There's only one more thing I need to do."

It felt like the weight of the whole Cluster had been lifted off of her tiny shoulders. "Oh, thank the stars."

Peridot felt Lapis deal the final hair clip and moved around to her bin again. She rummaged through it until she pulled out a pair of. . .

" _S-Scissors_?"

Lapis turned back with an electrifying grin. "Yeah!"

"I-I don't think that's necessary! Isn't the hairstyle you want to achieve possible with the current length of my form's hair?"

The grin dampened slightly as the wielder of the terrifying human gadget turned towards the magazine she laid on the floor beside Peridot. It was opened to the designated cut, modeled by a sharp-faced woman with hair that looked close enough to Peridot's in colour to be feasible for experimentation.

But, it was too short to be pulled off without giving Peridot's hair a couple snips. Or, multiple snips. More likely the latter.

"No."

" _Uhm. ._ "

The taller gem prowled around her wild-haired barn mate and crouched to become equal level with her head. "You ready?"

"Am I supposed to say yes to make you happy?"

"Close enough."

Lapis' fingers wound inside the metallic arms of the scissors as she spread apart the blades, drawing it meticulously closer to Peridot's hair. . two inches. . _one inch_. . .

Peridot felt her gem figuratively crack with anxiety.

The scissors suddenly shot out of Lapis' hand, shooting across the barn and into one of the wooden poles that held the loft up.

Peridot looked up, flushed with embarrassment, while Lapis accusingly frowned down at her.

"Did you have to do that?"

" _Heh heh. . ._ "

" _ **PERIDOT?"**_

" _GYAH_!"

Both gems spun with shock toward the barn entrance, where in the light, two familiar silhouettes stood.

"Pearl! Garnet!" Peridot yipped, frantically throwing her hands up to cover her mortifying half-styled hair. "Wh-what a surprise! _Uh_ , Lapis and I were just-"

"I'm sorry, Peridot, but there's no time," the fusion intervened, shaking her head in dejected denial. "You must come outside."

The barn gems shared a shaken, bemused look before turning simultaneously back to her.

"For what?"

* * *

Steven's flip-flops sunk into the sand as he waved Connie good-bye, watching her mom's cleanly vehicle pull onto the nearest road and begin their journey back to their home away from Beach City.

The wooden stairs leading up to the entrance to his home creaked as he scrambled up - admittedly dropping down onto all fours to speed up the process a mere quarter of the way through.

The boy pushed through the screen door, an animated smile on his lips as he greeted the Gems.

Or, as he greeted the empty house. That was okay, too.

"Pearl and Garnet must still be on their mission," he murmured to himself reassuringly. "Yeah. And Amethyst's probably in her room."

Since he'd lost his fry bits to gravity and to the savage seagulls, he only thought it fair he comb through the contents of the fridge for anything good to eat.

"Yogurt. . . a sandwich from a few days ago. . . " His nose scrunched up as a malodorous smell burned at his nostrils. "Amethyst's engine oil. . ." He sighed. "Nothing to satisfy hungry little Stevie."

He turned in defeat away from the refrigerator before snapping to attention.

There was an unopened bag of popcorn with its clear packaging still plastered on lying innocently on the kitchen counter. "Oh! Nevermind!"

In no time the transparent wrapping was discarded in the trash bin and the paper bag was stuffed into the microwave.

"One minute and forty-seven seconds," Steven recalled as he punched in the correct time. "Because that extra thirteen seconds makes the difference between good popcorn and burnt popcorn. _Yeck_." He didn't want a repeat of his last attempt at microwaving the buttery bagged kernels.

Pearl wasn't very pleased with him when the entire beach house reeked of burnt starch for half an hour.

"Now. . . to wait," Steven muttered to himself, sprawling out on the marble countertop as he gazed at the gridded bottom of the microwave buzzing overhead.

Not even a few seconds later and he felt something warm and wet nuzzle his foot. Then, a guttural grunt.

" _Huh_ \- Lion!"

The boy sprang off the counter and landed squarely on the large pink creature's head. His reward for his pique targeting was an indignant huff and a bat of a massive black paw pad, sending him sliding slowly back onto the kitchen floor.

"Aww, _c'mon_ , you know you love me," Steven crooned as he stroked the big cat's head.

Lion grunted nonchalantly before settling back onto his powerful haunches, dipping into a comfortable crouch as he tucked his forelegs beneath his mane. Another incensed chuff and he butted Steven with his muzzle, scooting Steven backwards as the gem hybrid flailed.

"Whoa- what's up with you, boy?"

Another grumbling chuff and the lion's head pivoted around to the warp pad near the door to the Temple. Steven gasped as stars billowed in his eyes.

" _Another_ lion! And it's _purple_!"

" _Rawr,_ I'm a _lion._ "

"Oh." Well, that made more sense. Real lions can't talk. "Hi, Amethyst."

"Yo, Ste-man. Lion doesn't seem to like it when I do this, does he?"

Amethyst padded over towards Steven and his disgruntled pink beast, her shape-shifted tail furling testily over her back as she watched Lion send her a somehow vacant yet adverse stare.

Steven caught onto Lion's low-key hostility and patted the feline's head. "Yeah, I don't think he likes it. Look, his fur's all spiky on his back!"

Indeed, the pale pink fur lining the lion's spine was risen and giving ominous little twitches.

Amethyst chafed with a groan of surrender. "All right, all right." Resplendent light engulfed the purple gem's body until she'd shrunken in size back to her original form, torn white tank top and all. "Where were you today? You weren't here when I came out earlier."

"I just got back in from hanging out with Connie!" Steven explained as the microwave dinged to signify the end of the cooking cycle. "I got attacked by seagulls!"

Amethyst's brows quirked with bewildered mirth before her lips shook with a _pff_. "Yeah, you don't wanna mess with those guys. They don't mess around when you get 'em all riled up." Her eyes briefly retained a darker, haunted look. "I should know."

Steven's instincts probed him to ask about what exactly _that_ meant, but, the smell oozing out of the cracked microwave door handle was too alluring to ignore. "Yep," he huffed as he climbed over Lion's shaggy shoulders and used the lion as a step-stool to pop the popcorn out of the machine. "They wanted my fry bits. They took like, all of them! And then I _died_."

"That's nice," droned the stoutly purple gem as she opened the fridge to sift through the old food and drink with lusterless interest. She ended up grabbing the uncapped bottle of engine oil and twirled it in her hands as she watched Steven rip open the bag.

"What're you gonna do now?" She pressed as she took a greedy swig of the stuff.

The boy stared at the little wisps of steam the popcorn bag exhaled with a crinkle as he gripped it a bit tighter. "Not sure. I was gonna watch Crying Breakfast Friends or something." He lifted his gaze to pierce Amethyst with it, wiggling his dark eyebrows temptingly. "Wanna watch it with me?"

Amethyst's face tightened as probable flashbacks of the. . . strange. . . cartoon show came to mind.

" _Ehh_ ," she finally ceded, eyeing his bag of popcorn hungrily. "Why not?"

* * *

"You're joking me. . ."

"What makes you think we'd be lying about this, Peridot?" Pearl demanded, hands poised on her thin hips as she stared down at the smaller technician as she perused the damaged gem pod.

"I- nevermind," Peridot grumbled as she crouched to inspect a rip in the exterior of the capsule.

The four gems stood outside the barn, hovering around the carcass of the air craft like vultures with Peridot being the only one to dive in.

Lapis lingered just behind Garnet, giving the gem pod a wide enough berth to be reclusive but not far enough away as to seem unincluded. Veggie Head lingered cautiously at her feet, whimpering at the sight of the dysfunctional object. Lapis eventually picked him up and held him, resting her head thoughtlessly on his as she watched the two technicians work.

Pearl stood close to Peridot, giving the short gem insight about how and where the pod was found.

Peridot huffed and heaved herself up from the ground, sending Lapis a worried look before turning it to Pearl. "This is an older model. A TG-18 Transport Pod. It wasn't made to land on planets, it was only meant to land on larger Homeworld vessels in secured side units," she explained as she ran a hand over its dimpled shell.

"Generally they were for messenger gems, like hyalites. But for the past few decades Homeworld has been extending their usage to other gems due to the lack of resources." She gave a little shrug. "Out to quartz soldiers, even."

A seed of fear planted into Peridot's chest, then, as she wondered if the gem assigned to this capsule had a mission similar to that of the Ruby's: to locate and seek progress on the Earth mission. Which, fortunately, had been put down and nullified about long ago when Peridot became a Crystal Gem.

Pearl was visibly shaken beside her, crouching down to investigate a loose piece of machinery Peridot was fondling in her elfin hands. "You don't suppose. . ."

"There's no way to be sure right now. . ." Peridot pursed her lips pensively.

A brief moment of silence among all four gems before Peridot huffed with resolve and hopped into the open pod.

"Peridot!" Pearl and Lapis both blurted at the action.

The tiny gem popped into view, looking rather hilarious with her hair stuck out in different directions from all the paste and hair clips stuffed into it, but considering the dire situation, no gem could find it in them to laugh.

"I was simply getting a closer look from the inside," Peridot pointed out snidely. "It's not exactly easy identifying an internal issue from the _outside._ "

"Well?" Pearl pressed, leaning in. "What's the issue? It's gem tech too new for me to pinpoint, and I even utilized your old escape pod to track your location!"

Peridot's face squeezed as though she'd just discovered lemons. " _Ha._ "

The blue and white gem recognized her error. "Oops, _ha-ha_ , silly me. Sorry, Peridot."

The small gem grunted her forgiveness as she dove down to investigate the battered control panel, vanishing from sight temporarily as she ducked beneath the overhead. "If I was able to reboot its system, restore it to before it collided with Earth, I'd be able to see what type of gem was was responsible for flying it."

"Would you be able to track her location?"

"Most likely."

A collective sigh of relief was released. "That's wonderful news," said Pearl.

"Did you take anything from the crash site aside from the pod?"

Pearl and Garnet met eyes. "No. . ."

"Hmm. I'll need to just work with this old thing, then." Peridot noncommittally grunted. "It's obvious that it's suffered recent injury, discerned by how the grime is still so fresh and how nothing is really collapsing onto itself."

She tapped the blank, crack-speckled screen on the main user interface. "But it's damaged so badly it's inoperable. It won't even react to gem presence."

"You can fix it?" Garnet asked, adjusting her visor and giving the destroyed pod a vacillating inspection.

Peridot cackled from within the pod, a loud, grating one that betrayed the gem's trademark pride. "Of _course_ I can! What do you think I am, _dull_?" The technician crowed. "Just come back in a day or two and we'll pick up from there?"

"Sounds like a plan, Peridot," Garnet concluded. She gave the newest Crystal Gem a thankful pat on the shoulder. "Thank you."

"My pleasure!" Peridot beamed to the leader as she pattered over beside Lapis, hands on her hips as she viewed the capsule. "I'll have it running by the next time you visit."

Garnet nodded. "We'll have her tracked down in no time."

The fusion twirled around and hailed Pearl, bid farewell to Peridot and Lapis, before walking off together towards the warp.

Once Pearl and Garnet were out of range, and the sound of the warp pad activating in the distance sung through the air, her lips pointed into an uneasy scowl as she gave the crumpled gem pod a wary stare. She leaned into Lapis, and she felt a hand clasp her shoulder steadily.

Apprehension swirled like thunderclouds inside of her mind.

"Do you really think you can track. . whoever it is, down?" Lapis questioned wearily.

Peridot nodded certainly. "Yes. But. . . " She paused, hunching her shoulders and craning her head up to look at the ocean gem in concern.

"I'm just wondering what she's doing here."

* * *

 **...Ahah.. ahaha.. ha.. I've been really excited to put my little barn nerds in here. I love them a lot, okay? Like, a lot. A lot. Wow, there's an echo in here. Uh. Anyway. It's for _certain_ they'll have big roles (or at the very least, _heavily_ recurring parts) in the story, even if they've only just gotten their debut to Hope of Morning.**

 **By the way, I'm procrastinating and stressing over studying for like, four important mid-terms by writing this. _Woohoo_.**

 **In any case. . . seeya 'round, guys, gals, and non-binary pals! Woop!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I planned to have this out yesterday, but I got carried away by Chinese take-out and binge-watching just because I had a day free of, well, everything.**

 **The joys of the holidays! Speaking of, I hope you all had a great time if you celebrate (or don't) around this time of year!**

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 **Disclaimer: I do not own Steven Universe! It belongs to Rebecca Sugar.**

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The warp's blue luster shone on the crystalline, glittering rocks as Pearl and Garnet were transported back into the beach house.

"We're back," Garnet bluntly announced to a seemingly empty home.

The white gem was hasty to hop off of the device as soon as her form had transpired, readily walking deeper into the home like it would rid her of the troublesome thoughts shooting through her head. There was always something subconscious in the home that eased her mind.

Her eyes had just trained onto the edge of _her_ painting, so grandeur and immaculate in its place above the screen door, before- " _Hey, P_!"

Pearl spun around, hands positioned by her throat in such a way to propose she were about to reach for a spear, before she caught sight of Steven and Amethyst hiding up on his bedroom left. Seeing them unharmed relieved her of some of her worries.

Both were laid across Steven's bedspread. Steven seemed invested in the cartoon buzzing from the television before him, while Amethyst was beaming down at Pearl with a smirk. She seemed to be chewing something, and with the salty aroma coming in waves down from their room, her guess was popcorn. It was one of Steven's more common delicacies, after all.

"Hello Amethyst," Pearl greeted quietly, dropping her arms tensely to her waist.

The littler gem seemed to quickly catch on to the fact that something wasn't quite right. Her brows knitted as she swung her short limbs off of Steven's bed, narrowly avoiding jabbing a heel into Steven's thick head of curls.

"You're back!" Steven exclaimed, scrambling on all fours to the edge of the loft to peer, grinning ear to ear, down at Pearl and Garnet. "How'd the mission go?"

Pearl's hands grabbed at her sash nervously. "It. . . _went_."

"Huh?"

Garnet finally walked in, her hands loosely clenched as she stopped beside Pearl. "Steven, Amethyst. We've got some news."

The spindly gem beside her shot her a surprised glance. Was she really going to tell them about what they'd find? Or _who_ they had found?

"Now, Garnet, I don't think-"

"It's important that they're informed," Garnet insisted as she placed a heavy gem-studded palm onto Pearl's shoulder. "If you two would come down here, we'll tell more of what we found."

Pearl knew that Garnet was right. Leaving the youngest Crystal Gems without any knowledge about their recent discovery would come back to bite them in the end. She knew quite well that keeping secrets always landed oneself in an even stickier situation.

Still, it didn't make the curdling feeling within her form abate any.

Amethyst simply took a single step off of the loft and promptly fell down onto the sofa below. "What's up?"

Steven followed, albeit less gracefully, as he teetered on the edge of the loft and fell onto the couch below with a stifled chuckle. " _Ahaha_ -ow." He hoisted himself up onto the cushion beside Amethyst. "Yeah! What happened? Did you guys capture whatever you were capturing?"

"We did," assauged the team leader. "But it's what we found with it we need to talk with you about."

Both Steven and Amethyst seemed to sharpen their demeanors as Garnet revealed the trials of the mission. Pearl, too, chipped in to make comments on the corruption's odd behavior in the amphitheater. "It seemed to be changing before my very eyes," she provided when she noticed Steven's face brighten with thought. "Like the marks on its skin were moving around, and growing!"

She dully noted the way Steven's lips pursed the way they did whenever something clicked with him.

"It reminded me of the gem monsters we hunted in the Great North, but smaller in size. It didn't seem very interested in me until the light reflected against my spear."

"Yeah, okay, monster's a little quiet," Amethyst griped. "And. . _weirder_. But what's got you two callin' us down for?"

Pearl's fingers twisted restlessly. Was Garnet really going to exploit their findings? A glance to the larger gem gave her a simple, one-worded answer: definitely. Her features were bent into one of deep contemplation, and her posture was stiff enough to break boards with nothing more than a meager twitch.

Garnet was silent for a moment, weighing her options about how this scenario would play through. "After we chased the creature into the mountains and cornered it, we discovered what exactly it was running towards. We found an abandoned gem pod there, in the hollow."

That certainly seemed to grab their attention.

"What? Like, a ship? A _ship_ ship?" Steven gasped, dark eyes blown wide with now unyielding curiosity.

"It's not exactly. . . _big_ news," Amethyst yawned. She threw a hand up dismissively, brows furrowed with abstained thought. "What about Centipeetle's ship? That's been there for thousands of years. It's not news."

"When we found the pod, it was still smoking." Afforded Pearl. "Judging by its exterior's condition, we believed the crash to be recent."

Garnet approved this with an obstinate nod. "Pearl and I have reason to speculate it's only been a few days since it came to Earth. With what we saw, it wasn't exactly a controlled landing. It was in worse shape than when we found and used Peridot's escape pod."

"So does that mean there's a gem wandering around?" Amethyst quavered. "Did you guys catch her? What happened?" The short gem's violet eyes searched Pearl for information, and her pupils thinned into flints when she got a funereal blink for a wordless reply.

"We didn't find her, no," reported Garnet. "However, if we're going to-"

"The _meteor shower!_ " Steven suddenly burst up from the couch, the thoughts surging through his mind suddenly coming together into a loud gasp. "That's what it was!"

Garnet fixed Steven with a blank look while Pearl turned to the boy, eyes slender with confusion. "What?"

He turned on the lithe gem knowingly. His chubby hands took hold of his cheeks as he quickly searched the floorboards underfoot like they might have the answers he needed to elaborate on this. "Connie! She told me that she saw a news report or something about a meteor shower in some mountains! I forget when, but, that must have been it!"

Amethyst turned incredulously to him. "It's more of a shooting star if it's just one thing comin' down from the sky."

"It wasn't just a thing, Amethyst!" Pearl snipped hotly. "It was a gem pod. And in case you forgot, the last time something like this happened. . ."

Silence befell the room as the four gems mulled over their last experiences with Homeworld. Of course, the commanding gem in _that_ ordeal was now one of them, a Crystal Gem, and was living happily over at her barn with the former informant, now turned best friend and barn mate.

Jasper was gone, as far as the lot of them were concerned: corrupted and bubbled safely away in Garnet's room.

"It wasn't pretty," Garnet finished sternly. "Which means we need to survey the area of the pod for whatever, or whoever, landed on this planet. Amethyst, however," she paused, sending Pearl a fleeting look, "does make a valid point. Steven, do you have any further intel on the meteor shower Connie told you about?"

"Garnet, you can't possibly mean. . ."

"We need to be certain, Pearl."

"Hold on _just_ a second!" Steven requested, hands digging intently through his front pockets as he took out his smartphone. "I can. . look it. . up. . _aha_!" He slid his fingers away from the screen and gripped the device proudly as he showed the contents of the mobile web article to the rest of the Gems.

On the page page there were some impressively titled paragraphs on the recent _meteor_ shower, as well as grainy photographed images that supposedly depicted the recent astronomical event.

It would make sense for humankind to defer to unfamiliar objects falling from above as meteors or shooting stars. But the Gems knew better than that, judging by the way their bodies tensed and eyes grew keen.

"That isn't atmospheric debris," Pearl noted as she inched a bit closer to Steven's glowing screen. In one of the images, a higher-quality one near the top of the webpage, it showed two or three orbs flitting across the sky at feasibly incalculable speeds. "Look at the trails they're leaving! And the bases are far too bright and. . . _colourful_ to just be some lifeless rock hurtling down from the stars, I-" Pearl paused her rambling to recover. She sent Garnet a silent plead for help.

"Man. . ." Amethyst mumbled into her palm, rubbing her thumb worriedly over her round jaw. "Do you think they sent a whole group of 'em?"

"A whole group of Homeworld Gems?" Steven queried, fingers fumbling for a more solid grip on the phone as he tried to keep the screen alive and glowing for the others. "Like, a fleet?"

"Wait a second. You said you found the pod, right?" Amethyst broke in suddenly. "Where is it? Didn't you bring it back?"

"We did." Pearl tilted her head slightly. "We left it with Peridot at the barn, seeing as she seems to know the most about newer gem technology than the rest of us, myself included."

"We were hoping she could make it function again, since it showed no signs of being online when we found it there," Garnet added.

Steven's head poked out from behind his cell phone. "What did she do? Is she gonna fix it?"

The fusion dipped her head consolingly. "She's already at work."

"And what if you find more? Are you just gonna dump 'em all on her and Lapis to wire back up?"

"We should hope not. That's only if there's any more Homeworld vessels at all, Amethyst. It is possible, but we had best not jump to conclusions." Garnet stood, resting her left hand on the boy's thick hair. "We're going to head back to the crash site to investigate further," the fusion told them, tone intransigent to further argument. "We need to see if there's evidence of more unearthly happenings."

Pearl stood, as well, followed by Amethyst who paced over to hover beside her. "Are you sure it's safe for him?" Pearl murmured to their leader, directing her white hands towards the boy practically bouncing on the floor, azure eyes dark with deliberation.

"Steven's been up against more than we properly credit him for," Garnet replied bluntly. "He can handle this."

That much was true, she acceded. In the past two years alone, Steven had saved the Earth from the terrifying clutches of the Cluster with Peridot, defeated Jasper a number of times, survived the brutal reality of _space_ alone with nothing but a shrinking Rose Quartz bubble. . . thinking back, it left a sinking feeling in Pearl's chest that she really didn't enjoy.

"Yeah," the boy interceded, walking up to Pearl and reaching up to grab her hand. "We'll figure out whatever this is! And if there really is someone out there, well. . we'll just have to see what we can do for her. Or them, if there's more than just one."

There it was: what had always made Steven so much different than the rest of them. The implacable compassion that the others found themselves more or less lacking. The extra level of patience it took to change hearts, as it had done so many times in the past for gems _and_ humans alike.

It never failed to make Pearl think of Rose.

"I'm sure we will," the thin gem squeezed his warm hand to recompense the comfort.

"They already know they're no match for the CG's!" Amethyst piped in from the other side of Pearl, tossing her hand through her pale hair confidently. "Big hand ship? No problem. Ruby squad? Out the door. What _more_ can they do to us?"

Pearl _could_ understand where Amethyst was coming from, but her inexperience in dealing with Homeworld left her far too naive to truly understand just what the gems there could do, or what they were truly capable of.

"More than we know, Amethyst," was her knowing whisper of a reply.

"I'm going to return to the crash site. Our expedition together will be tomorrow morning, when Steven is rested enough to make the journey." Garnet concluded.

Steven shook his head. "I can make it now!" Insisted the boy, biting his cheeks. "I'm not even-" Like it was to spite him, a breathy yawn made him lull. " _Tired_!"

The fusion spared the willful half-gem the smallest of sympathetic smiles. "Yes, but night's already fallen and we don't need to have any of us stumbling about in the dark out there."

Steven's shoulders drooped as he considered this. "Yeah, that makes sense." His dejection was short-lived, for he was soon pattering up the steps to his bedroom with reborn energy. "But that means I'll _really_ be ready for tomorrow morning, then," he mused from overhead, and the sound of shuffling fabrics could be heard as he dug through his belongings.

Pearl sauntered over to Garnet then, with Steven distracted by his things and Amethyst flanking her. "You're going to head back? What if you find one of them?"

"With what I can see, I shouldn't run into that problem," Garnet appeased. "But, if I do, I'll catch her before she realizes I'm there."

Pearl didn't need to ask about exactly what _catching_ meant. "Please be careful. We don't know what they want. . ."

"Or what they're here for!" The heavyset gem to her left supplied.

"Yes, that too. You'll tell us everything when you get back?"

Garnet affirmed this with a clench of her jaw and a wave of her hand. "Yes. I'll be back roughly an hour before sunrise." Her visor angled towards the loft, where the top of Steven's head could be seen bobbing around in pursuit of whatever he was looking for. "Don't let him wait up for me."

Pearl and Amethyst dipped their heads in understanding before turning away, the latter only sending a glance after Garnet to watch her step back onto the warp pad and vanish with a bright flash of turquoise.

 _"Let's hope she doesn't steal all the action for herself,"_ Amethyst jokingly mused to herself, before her conscience righted her attitude with the real graveness of the situation.

 _"Or maybe let's hope she doesn't find anything. . or_ anyone _, at all."_

The two older gems spent their time coaxing Steven to beneath the comforter, despite his perilous attempts and excuses that he just wasn't _tired_. Both gems could easily see through him, and within the hour the boy was tucked into bed and snoring cozily away.

Pearl found herself lingering within the confines of the beach house. A feeling she couldn't pinpoint wouldn't let her slip back into her own room. It wasn't as if she needed to rest, exactly, but the thought of gallivanting between her water pillars seemed soothing to her wary mind.

Amethyst seemed to be feeling the same thing. She was sitting silently on the bar stool on the other side of the kitchen island across from the blue and white gem, studying the marbled tile with lazy eyes.

"What do you think she'll find out there, Pearl?"

The sincerity in Amethyst's tone took Pearl by surprise. Since Steven had been sent to sleep, she seemed to lack the rambunctious behavior that made Amethyst _Amethyst._ It was the weight of it all finally sinking in and grabbing hold of the Earth gem.

"We can't be sure," Pearl murmured, leaning on the kitchentop and crossing her arms, destitute. Already she was hungry for more information about the pod and its contents, and more importantly, its missing passenger. "We can only hope it was only this one pod. . ."

"But what if it's not?" Amethyst whispered tersely as she leaned closer to Pearl. "What if there's more?"

The restlessness in the other gem's eyes was enough to make Pearl's head droop until it made her neck ache.

If there were more gem vessels out there, with inhabitants lost like the pod they _had_ found, it could mean a few select things. None of which were good.

When Homeworld sent its soldiers and technicians to scope out planets, it was to suck the life from it until it was nothing but a gem tech powerhouse.

The Crystal Gems had chased Homeworld away once. Would they able to do it again, but this time without Rose's army?

They hadn't even been able to stop Jasper.

"I don't know, Amethyst."

* * *

By the time Garnet had been transported back to the Himalayan Mountains, the sky had become an inky black freckled with only a few diminutive pinpricks of light clumping together here and there. But for the most part, the cumbersome blackness of night reigned.

The insects of the jungle around her churred so adamantly that it seemed like a pressure, a steadfast weight upon her shoulders as she marched off of the warp pad towards the site discovered just hours before.

She crunched through the furling undergrowth, utilizing her alien speed to propel her faster than merely jogging through the trees would have. Without Pearl or Amethyst or even Steven to distract her, she was now alone and in direct control of her thoughts, her speculations.

One side of her was demanding thorough explanation. What was this vessel doing here, on Earth? They had no business here, not after the war so long ago. They should have realized by now that Earth was no planet to take a gander at any longer - not after Peridot's crash and her choosing to affiliate as one of the Crystal Gems, not after the Rubies scouting for her and Jasper were lost. Didn't they realize that this planet was no longer _theirs_?

The more rational and patient side of her countered that if the pod had meant to land on this planet, wouldn't it have come better prepared? Peridot had maintained that these pods weren't meant for gravitational landings - they were meant only to land on larger ships.

Perhaps it truly was a crash landing? Just a freak accident that overrode some gem pilot's better capabilities and led them to crash in the recesses of the eastern continent?

Garnet knew better than to think that it was nothing more than an accident.

There were no accidents, not in these dire cases. If her future vision was correct. . .

Her feet fell into a familiar shallow pool of sand. The treeline, as well, rung the bells of recognition.

The fusion marched through the dense wall of demolished bracken separating her from the crumbling cliff where she and Pearl had found the Homeworld pod. The cavity where the pod had smashed into the cliff face seemed to had broken in on itself. Little brown pebbles dropped down every other moment, hinting precariously at another cave-in.

None of the natural elements mattered to Garnet. She was here for one thing.

She located said object where they had left it, lying pitifully on the scorched sands like the broken thing it was. Like before, focusing too closely on the damaged object seemed to send aching thrills through her temples. Yet, she couldn't find it in her to look away to save herself from the ghostly discomfort. She had dealt with worse artifacts.

Her arms outstretched to grab hold of the strange material. Something within her cried for her to reel back and pursue a more cautious route regarding this thing, but she disregarded the sentiment with a determined frown.

As soon as the tips of her fingers brushed the surface of the object, tongues of colourless fire licked at the edges of her being. It rapidly ate away at what she saw, and she subconsciously retracted her hand and pressed it protectively to what she thought was her chest.

She felt _disembodied_.

Through the slurred conflagration of white, shadows began to writhe before the Crystal Gem. The blobs of shadow took on vaguely humanoid shapes; all seemed discarnate, with voices that murmured incoherent nothings to Garnet on a plane different from reality. It was all garbled nonsense. But the pitch of fear in their uttering was indisputable.

Their silhouettes began to mutate and contort. Tusks and horns grew on their backs, shoulders, and necks. Their masses of hair whirled and expanded, spikes shooting up as helpless cries escaped from the flickering shadows of their gaping jaws. The world around them seemed to warp, swallowing all the light and plunging their realm into darkness.

In a final deluge of feeling she felt herself be vaulted back into her own body, the vision swept away, leaving wide spots of light as a kindly farewell gift. Her senses were so muddled it was difficult to tell if she was still standing or not, or where the effecting object was still making contact with her form.

She wasn't sure if the whole episode had taken place in a span of seconds, minutes, or even hours. Time seemed to have debased while she'd been under. . . whatever _that_ had been. The sky, dark and perpetually starless overhead, was no help.

As soon as she could feel the grains of sand pushing back up against her body, she clenched at the ground to ratify her senses. Her vision cleared next.

Whatever had overtaken Garnet, it had left behind its vicious phantom of a memory that drilled at her mind, leaving her asking more questions than before.

What did it mean? What had she just foreseen?

She stood, strength regained with a forceful thrust of mental will. The object she had dropped at one point during her- what had it been? Had it been a hallucination, or something her innermost self was bringing to light as a warning: a glimpse into a dark future.

Whatever it had been, there was still no question that it needed to be bubbled and saved before it could wreak any more havoc.

Garnet summoned her gauntlets, trusting them to shield her from direct contact with the the strangely chiseled object. Then again, she wasn't going to make that foolish mistake again. Instead of grabbing onto the object, she willed a bubble into existence and quickly enveloped the broken thing in the shielding reddish sphere.

She was thankful, or lucky, that whatever force had troubled her with direct contact was no longer in effect in the stasis of the bubble.

This way she was able to further scrutinize the object by gently rotating the bubble and observing all the odd symbols in all their malicious glory. The sigil-work carved into the fractured surface should have been conventional to translate. If it was from Homeworld, shouldn't it have been written in Gem?

Garnet couldn't translate any of the symbols on the object's outside. Focusing too deeply on deciphering the marks brought with it waves of physical dysphoria that made her vision swim again.

She had done all she could do at that moment, she decided.

Trying to unravel the truth around this mystery object had already cost her one interlude of unconsciousness. Further solitary probing could probably land the fusion in a much more adverse place.

She lifted the bubble in her gauntlets. Garnet gave one last study from behind darkened visors before, with a glower, tapping the surface and sending it away into the safety of the Temple.

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 **[ _muffled yelling_ ] I'm trying to keep this as a good 'ol slow-burn but I'm so excited to dive into stuff already. Next chapter, we should begin to dive deeper into the plot, so _yay_!**

 **In addition, I can't believe I listened to an instrumental song only while writing half the chapter. The Moulin Rouge OST doesn't fail to keep me creative, I guess.**

 **Seeya next chapter! It should be up sooner than later!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Finally, up to 20K words! Thank you all so much for reading thus far! I've also decided to bump the rating up to T+ soon because there's going to be violent scenes/some heavy stuff coming along in coming chapters!**

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 **Disclaimer: Rebecca Sugar owns Steven Universe.**

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Small green hands expertly positioned themselves before the holographic screen presented before them.

When Peridot had dived beneath the control panel to reassemble the fringed wiring, it had only taken a couple hours of tinkering and probing to turn on. She had nearly broken into a panic when the thing first shook to life, hovering a foot off the ground with a very shocked Lapis watching from the truck bed, encasing itself in an undulating bubble of teal light before finally giving out with a degraded _pshh_.

She was sure she could've saved herself from being carried off in an enemy pod.

It was strange on her tongue; a Homeworld pod: an _enemy_ pod.

But it was a good kind of strange.

Now, with Lapis leaning on the outside of the pod, the little technician was tapping through metaphysical lines of code rebuilt after the pod came to life and browsing catalogues containing old messages for from Homeworld colony or another.

"What're you looking for now?" The ocean gem asked as she rested her cheek on her palm, watching her barn mate work with lazy but cautious eyes.

"Looking for the identification record. It's got to be in here _somewhere_."

"And you're having trouble because?"

Peridot leaned back in the shaky pilot seat, leaving the display be with an annoyed groan. "The way it landed ruined everything! All the catalogues are in the wrong places, files have stuff clipped out of them, and the video display terminal on the dashboard is unfixable without materials from Homeworld."

She threw her hands to her visor and rubbed her temples. "It's not so much an impossible feat as it is _trying_ _my_ _patience_."

Lapis blew the air out from her cheeks and slid down the outside of the pod, looking inside at the translucent screen separating her from Peridot. "I'm surprised you had any to begin with," she remarked cheekily. Peridot's cheeks darkened with blue blush as she sucked flippantly at her teeth. She waved an accusing finger at the smiling blue gem. "Only for you. And the Gems."

The taller gem snorted and rose back up. "Sure. Speaking of, it looks like they're coming over."

"What?"

Peridot scrambled out of the cockpit and teetered on the edge of the pod's opening. She followed Lapis' stare over to where she could see the shine of the warp pad disintegrating in the distance.

Lapis' face lit up when she spotted a familiar pudgy human with them.

"Steven!" She called out, waving them-but _mostly_ Steven-over with a contained smile.

"Hi Lapis! Hi Peridot!" Steven called back, jogging ahead of the rest of the Crystal Gems and lobbing himself at the water gem. "I haven't seen you since. . . it's been a while!"

"We video called you a week ago," Peridot corrected from the pod.

"It felt like longer! And, I didn't really _see_ you."

Lapis laughed and ruffled the hair of the boy in her arms. "About time that changed, huh?"

The rest of the group had caught up at that point, greeting Lapis and Peridot with a wave, a polite smile, or a " _'sup, barn nerds,_ " in Amethyst's case.

"We've just returned from investigating the perimeter of the site we found it," Pearl explained and motioned to the online pod. "We didn't find anything else."

"Good to see you've got it turned on," Garnet lauded as she bent down to be eye level with the Peridot inside.

"It has the same acoustics as more recent Homeworld technologies, but what it keeps in general piloting it lacks in protection," Peridot cockily revealed as she swept her hand over the control panel.

"Have you found anything notable?"

Pearl padded over, as well, investigating the impromptu work the other technician had done on the vessel. "Or who it may have belonged to?"

"In just a minute, I will." With a waggle of her fingers Peridot resumed work on rifling through the files in the pod's memory drive, mumbling beneath her breath while reciting the commonly applied components to aero-storage.

Pearl stayed with Peridot, dropping helpful comments whenever something of familiarity would pop on-screen. Garnet turned back to Steven and Lapis, the latter crouching as Steven excitedly chattered to her about one thing or another. Amethyst spotted Veggie Head snoozing just outside the barn doors, gasping and rushing over to the vegetable excitedly saying, "here, Pumpkin! C'mere!"

" _Aha_! Found it!"

A smirk stretched across Peridot's face as she opened an identification folder. She scrolled through auxiliary files until finding the one she was searching for. "Here she is! This pod was assigned to. . . "

Her face twisted from confidence to confusion. "A Quartz soldier?"

Pearl, too, squinted at the interface to double-check the text and crude reference image tucked into the corner of the file display. "It appears so. What kind is she?"

Peridot's lips tightened as she was carried deeper into the personal file. "An aventurine, specifically 1F8 Cut 2ND. That's. . . peculiar. Quartzes are utilized for their strength! Not for piloting courier pods!"

By then the rest of the Gems had crowded around the pod to investigate the green gem's findings.

Steven propped his arms on the ledge of the opening, staring widely up at the glittering screen. The way Peridot moved her hands skillfully across its nonexistent surface, it reminded him of how she would rummage through her things with her old limb enhancers!

"Whoa!" he murmured when an image of the Quartz assigned to the gem pod was scrolled over. "She kind of looks like Amethyst!"

Amethyst came up beside the boy, eyebrows creasing with distaste as she regarded the profile. "Not really. Just look at her face! And her clothes. If anything, she looks way more like Jasper." Steven quickly nudged the purple gem in the abdomen, pointing with his eyes at how Lapis' visage seemed to demote. "Sorry, but it's true."

"Quartz similarities _aside_ ," Pearl directed, tired of the conversation going off on a tangent. "What was her original mission?"

"Hmm. Well, she wasn't a messenger, for once, which her biography states," Peridot clarified. "She was on orders from her manager to take this pod from their larger vessel and head into this star system, the Milky Way. If the video capsule in the control panel was active, I'd be able to find that ship's location in the star maps. _But_ ," she admitted with an annoyed grunt, "this is the best we can do for the today."

"That's all very well, Peridot, but what was she sent here for?" Garnet prompted. There were other Gem colonies, though far and few in between, scattered across their galaxy, yet so archaic they would no longer be of significant use to Homeworld.

As she continued down the page she opened her lips to relay the information, but when she slowly clamped them and narrowed her eyes they knew something was wrong.

"It doesn't say."

"What do you mean it doesn't say?" Pearl interjected, placing her hands crossly on her hips. "It's protocol for all vessels to carry in their archives the purpose of their mission! Or at least, it was then," she elaborated with an agitated peek at Garnet over the hood.

"Then this vessel isn't following protocol," the green gem pointed out snappily. "Or, it's an underhanded trip."

"Can I see the screen?"

"Be my guest."

Peridot clambered out of the cockpit to leave room for the taller white gem to squeeze in. How in the name of all the stars in the sky a Quartz fit in there was beyond Peridot. Unless they were constantly shape-shifting, it would have been one unfitting ride across space.

She plopped onto the ground and stood beside Garnet with a frown. "I also found a compartment beneath the floor of the helm. It was empty, but there was no reason for it to have been there. Other TG-18 spacecraft don't have it. They're not meant for transporting _things_."

The fusion's jaw ticked. "Show me."

Peridot led Garnet over to the other side of the capsule, leaning in and pressing some unseen mechanism just beside Pearl. With a hiss a box-shaped compartment was revealed, emptied of whatever contents it once held.

There were little symbols carved into the slot that radiated a gentle white whenever Peridot's fingers drew too close to the compartment's walls.

"It's got these weird symbols all over the inside-"

"Let me guess," Pearl cut in warily, "it looks like Gem, but you can't read it?"

The smaller technician's eyes broadened beneath her yellow visor. "Yes. How did you know?"

The two older Crystal Gems shared a distressed glance. "I found a strange item while scavenging the crash site the night we left the pod with you and Lapis," said Garnet. "It, too, was covered in symbols like that. If I'm not mistaken, I believe they _are_ the same markings."

"Garnet said it had this strange effect on her," Pearl added quietly as to not alarm Lapis, Steven, or Amethyst. "It had the some effect on me, as well, though I didn't get nearly as close as she did. I want to think that this is some sick manner of gem warding magic."

Peridot's nose scrunched pensively, lifting her hand to her chin before snapping her fingers decisively. "If you bring me the object, I can run a simple diagnostic with the pod. There's a high chance whatever it is that you found, Garnet, would be in the systems if it had any deliberate purpose to the Quartz' mission."

Garnet stared at Peridot a moment, features _exceptionally_ unreadable as Pearl looked on to the fusion for guidance. "I can bring you the item, though it must remain inside of its bubble," she decided.

"But it'll be difficult-if not _impossible_!- to get a clear read with a bubble in the way!"

"I know. But this item is dangerous. Naked contact with its surface left me rattled, and I don't want to let it immerse you in the same way it did me," Garnet pressed, steadfast. "We do need to know what it is. But we mustn't risk ourselves in trying to find it out."

Peridot looked ready to argue, but an austere look down from Garnet doused the flames threatening to billow out in her frustration. "Fine," she sniffed, sending Pearl inside the pilot seat a trusting squint. "Could you pull up the object analysis apparatus?"

"Yes, of course." Pearl hesitated a moment, studying the panels laid out before her before activating said device.

"I'll try to find a way to link that to the compartment," the green gem promised as Pearl climbed out of the pod. "And we'll see what we can do about getting a reading through the. . . _bubble_ issue."

"Haha! Hey! Garnet, Peridot, Pearl! Look!"

All three gems were ripped out of their business by Steven's excited call. The boy was standing on a dolphin created from water that elegantly swooped through the air, watched from the ground by Lapis and Amethyst. The ocean gem flicked her wrist and small fishes emerged from the underbelly of the dolphin, swimming up and swirling playfully around Steven before dropping into the dolphin's back.

Peridot would have sourly remarked that now was no time for capering about, but for what felt like the umpteenth time that day she willed down her temper when she saw Lapis' smiling face.

" _Ooh,_ Steven, be careful!" Pearl stammered, whisking away to hurriedly join the others.

Peridot shifted her attention back to Garnet, hoping she felt the same about the situation. Instead, she found Garnet peering down at her with a virtually imperceptible smile as she fixed her visor. She felt an embarrassed heat boil into her cheeks.

"I'll bring you the bubble after we return Steven to the Temple. I'd like to stay and see what comes up," the large gem disclosed.

"That can be arranged. For now. . ." Peridot ran a hand through her yellowish shock of hair as she regarded Steven as the dolphin deposited him gracefully on the edge of she and Lapis' smaller-than-average lake before diving in. She wished the pressure in her chest would alleviate.

Garnet rested her right hand on the technician's shoulder. "Don't work yourself too hard. There's no shame in needing a break. You know that."

Peridot huffed as she considered Garnet's words. Sure enough, the Crystal Gems-well, mostly Steven-had taught her when they were creating the drill that it was _okay_ to rest. Not everything needed to be completed straightaway and as absolute as possible like it had been on Homeworld.

"Yeah. Wow, thanks."

"No problem."

The two ended up walking back over to the rest of the group. Steven ran up and threw his arms around Peridot after detaching himself from Lapis. "I'll see you again soon, okay?" He pledged. "I've gotta head back to the house now, though."

The group bid their farewells before taking off to the warp pad. Lapis and Steven followed them there, waving them off as bright light engulfed them and transported them back home.

When the barn gems returned to the barn Veggie Head galloped up to them, though when he came within range he slowed and gave the pod an anxious stare.

Lapis snorted quietly and reached down to wrap her arms around their pumpkin. "Even he's creeped out by that thing."

Peridot glanced up at Lapis with a scrunched nose. "It's not creepy. . ." she admitted weakly.

"It's just not supposed to be here," the blue gem finished for her with a wry smile.

"What did Pearl and Garnet tell you?" She asked as she stepped through the doors of the barn, waiting for Peridot to skip in after her before continuing in to collapse back onto a pile of hay they'd initially dug out for meep morp but never used.

Peridot paused near the doors to the barn a moment. The thought crossed her mind that she should be continuing work on the pod and connecting the analyzing apparatus to the chamber. However, Garnet's words still rung clearly in her ears.

"About an item they found where it crashed," she said as she crashed down beside Lapis, lying back on the straw. "They think it's connected to the strange compartment I showed you."

Her barn mate's face wrinkled with thought as she flipped onto her side, setting Veggie Head between them as he needily panted for more attention.

"Do you think it's important?" Lapis asked.

"It must be," Peridot murmured and rested her hand between his eyes as she shifted onto her side. "Or else Homeworld wouldn't have included it at all."

Something she remembered made her gasp. "Oh! Garnet is going to be returning later with the item, and wants to stay and watch it be analyzed. Is that all right with you, Lapis?"

Lapis shrugged indifferently. "I was going to hang around in the barn until sunrise anyway."

Relief washed over the smaller gem. "Okay, thanks. I just wanted to check that you were okay with it!"

Lapis huffed bemusedly. "Nerd."

Peridot frowned, but it softened when she saw Lapis' sympathetic expression. "That was random."

"That's what Amethyst called us. I don't know what it means."

"Me neither."

* * *

The television hummed ambiguously in front of Steven, displaying some monotonous news reporter droning on about the weather conditions along the state's coastline.

Steven had resorted to listening to the news since coming back from the barn. He was sad to leave Peridot and Lapis again so soon, but if there was even a chance he could learn something, _anything_ about the "meteors" _,_ he was gonna jump at the chance to let the Gems in on it. All of them!

But so far, his efforts were unrewarded. The only thing remotely interesting on the news that night was how a man from Keystone had biked halfway across the country and was now pedaling through Delmarva's capitol.

He was laid backwards, head positioned at the foot of his bed while his feet drummed thoughtlessly at his pillow. He really didn't mind that they would smell a little like feet later. He always had that air freshener bottle he kept tucked away in his drawer, just for whenever Pearl would come up to see that he really _had_ cleaned his room whenever she told him to.

The boy stretched with a small grunt, narrowing his eyes at the article. Already discourse was breaking out among the comment section, some keener folk insisting it was alien invasion while the more realistic of peoples were giving the wilier lot stern flicks on the nose.

Because alien invasion was such a ridiculous notion.

Sometimes, it felt like it was only the residents of Beach City who knew and acknowledged extraterrestrial lifeforms.

With a dissatisfied sigh Steven closed the browser app, swiping blankly through his home screens until his eyes zoned in on the green messenger app.

"Oh!" He gasped lightly. "I didn't even know I had an unread message. . "

He promptly opened up the app, his frame of mind brightening considerably upon seeing his most recent contact.

 **Connie:** Look at this seagull I saw today! It kind of reminded me of you.

Below the message was a slightly blurred image of a seagull with the plumage around his head fluffed out. It had a few dark flecks wrapped around the fluff, making it look like it almost had an honest head of hair. It also had a bit of french fry stuck in its beak.

 **Steven:** why did it remind you of me?

 **Connie:** Look at its head! It's got little black curls like you! And the french fry steals the deal.

The boy squinted at the picture again; the seagull in question looked angry from being spied on by nosy young girls. Steven laughed as he typed out a reply.

 **Steven:** it looks upset that you were taking pictures! did you ask its permission?

 **Connie:** It's a seagull, Steven!

 **Steven:** And you know that they're really sensitive! did you forget what happened at the boardwalk?

 **Connie:** How could I? You basically reenacted at least six different soap opera deaths in one take.

 **Steven:** four actually. it's an acquired skill from being with the gems all the time

His sly chuckles were interrupted by an alarming noise emitting from the box in front of him. Startled, he powered down his cell and gave the T.V. a mutinous look. "Gotta catch a boy at his most vulnerable, don'tcha?" Chided the boy, waggling his finger like the machine would listen and tone it down.

Steven childishly poked his tongue out at the T.V. before looking back to his vibrating phone. A new message from Connie.

And then another. And another.

The pudgy boy tilted his head curiously as he swept the screen to life and read through them.

 **Connie:** Steven, turn on your TV!

 **Connie:** Hey, are you there? It's only been like a minute!

 **Connie:** Is this because I didn't ask the seagull permission?

 **Connie:** Check the TV! Something's happening!

Fumbling to send a response to quell Connie's frantic messages, he began to type.

 **Steven:** It's already on! Whats

Steven spared a glance up in the middle of tapping his message out to the television in front of him, wondering what on Earth Connie was so determined he see.

, that wasn't normal.

A crimson banner now panned across the lower half of the screen, emboldened by the large white text riding on it.

" **News Alert: Strange Phenomenon Across Asian South** ".

The newswoman maundered away from Delmarva and instead told a story on how, not even thirty minutes prior, scientists were baffled by odd happenings across the Himalayas.

Steven set down his phone in thought before crawling out of bed and over to the T.V. Hadn't they just searched a huge portion of that place?

Live footage was played, and whether it was a shaky hand controlling the camera or some windblown wooden electric pole, he couldn't tell. But luscious forests rolled out in front of him, appearing dark and barren without a full moon to light it. At first it seemed derogative.

 _"What's so strange about forests? I mean, all the weeds and stuff can get a little crazy sometimes, but is that enough to make it onto the news?"_

He frowned at the screen.

 _"Wait. What's that?"_

Among the shade-dipped hollows in the canopies, white light flashed. It was instantaneous and bold, sparking to life for two seconds and jolting about like a bonfire before plunging the grove back into darkness.

It had been far enough to leave the sight a mystery, but close enough to give Steven an idea of what was happening.

Actually, it wasn't even an idea. All he knew was that there were strange things going on, and he and the Gems had missed them in their scouting of the mountains earlier.

"What if there were more?" He whispered quietly, turning to stare at the closed Temple door. "I-I should grab the Gems. They're gonna wanna hear about this."

With one last look at the glowing box the boy practically threw himself down the flight of stairs into the living space below.

"Garnet! Amethyst! Pearl!" He called, hoping someone would hear him from within the Temple. He even flailed his arms over his head like it would help hail them out of their quarters. "Come out! There's something on the T.V. you're _really_ gonna wanna see!"

Within the next seven seconds, both Pearl and Amethyst had flown out of their rooms.

"What?" Asked Pearl as she marched over, towering over Steven with wide, worried eyes. "What's going on with your television?"

"The T.V.! There was this emergency alert, and there's some crazy stuff going on in the mountains we searched today!"

"Are you kidding me?" Amethyst chafed. "We searched likeall over there!"

"That's what I thought, too!" Steven agreed. "But- come on, you gotta look!"

Steven led the other gems up the stairs to the loft, showing them the T.V. as another flash of light overtook the jungle. "See! There's flashy lights going on all over the place!"

Pearl knelt with a hand pressed to her lips with discomposure. Amethyst joined her, though she was much more vocal on the affair.

" _What_?" She balked. "Flashy lights? Are you sure it's just not some. . . weird jungle clan of wild photographers out tryin' to-"

She was cut off by the sound of scuffling by the cameraman, followed by what the three assumed to be foreign curses as he yelped and began sprinting.

"What's he running from?" Steven timidly asked, looking at Pearl for any kind of answer.

"Oh, _dude_. . . "

Amethyst's offhanded gasp drew his eyes back to the television and he soon found he couldn't detach them. The cameraman had stopped running, and seemed to be quickly chanting some sort of mantra to himself, void of breath.

A muffled shrieking sound that made even Steven's lungs hitch seemed to kickstart another running spree. For a few seconds all that was heard and seen was the wild munching of hard soles on grass, rugged breathing, and the camera swinging erratically in the man's palm.

But soon another wail rose up and the camera was quickly abandoned, lens angled on a dark, shadowy path illuminated by only a pitiful amount of starlight.

When the fleeing human's footfalls died down, heavier, more brutal ones rose.

A beast roughly the size of a horse burst through the shadowed vegetation. It was too dark to discern any other physical features other than its dark, smoke-coloured skin as it messily stumbled across the rocky path.

"It's a corrupted gem!" Steven gaped. "We totally missed them!"

"But- that's impossible!" Pearl pressed. "We searched so much of that place and came up with nothing!"

Amethyst pressed her hand to her temple in exasperation. "Maybe we just didn't search well enough."

"We've never missed anything as big as a whole gem monster before, Amethyst!" Snapped the other gem before she collected herself and began to make her way away from Steven's television set. "Garnet needs to be told."

"Pearl, wait! It's doing something!" Steven pointed at the screen, where the monster was now stumbling closer to the camera. One could see its gem placed on its shoulder, surrounded by shivering scales that glinted dangerously in the half-light.

When it came of close enough range, they could see its body shifting, spines quivering and seeming to grow right before their very eyes.

It suddenly let out a thunderous bellow of mutinous rage before bringing down a massive clawed foot down on the camera, cutting off the footage with a sickening crunch.

The news studio suddenly showed back on screen, showing a shocked crew. The three in front of the TV were equally as bewildered.

"It- it looked like it was in so much pain," Steven murmured shakily. Pearl seemed like she was about to be ill, while Amethyst looked unsteadily away and focused on something other than the stuttering newswoman on screen.

"Turn it off, Steven. Please, get to bed," Pearl tersely ordered, holding her hand up when the boy opened his mouth to argue. "I know that you want to help it. But it's been a long day for you, and you need to sleep."

The boy finally gave in after a few minutes of worried contending. He went off to the restroom to perform his nightly ritual, leaving Pearl and Amethyst to walk down into the house with equally uneasy body language.

"It wasn't right, P," Amethyst hissed to Pearl as she stepped onto the warp pad. "That monster. Something was up with it."

"Of course there was. It's a corrupted gem. None of them are in their right mind."

"That's not what I mean!" The stout gem huffed. "It reminded me of Jasper."

Pearl frowned as she paused igniting the warp, fingers clenching together at the mention of the brutish Quartz' name. "What about it made you think of her?"

"The way it moved. Or, uh, the way its. . . _spikes_ did," Amethyst tried, raising her arms and making arbitrary hand movements like it would help her but the thought into words. "When we fought Jasper in the beta Kindergarten, she looked just like that before we poofed her."

Pearl's lips tightened crookedly as she pondered the small gem's words, mulling over them in her mind while regarding Amethyst from the corner of her eyes to make sure it was truthful.

Nothing in Amethyst's uncharacteristically sober expression let her have benefit of the doubt.

"So you're saying that. . . "

Amethyst met her haunted blue eyes as she spoke next.

"It was corrupted recently."

* * *

 **A.N., I procrastinated on this way too much. But being at home for two days straight has left me restless and unable to sit down and do something for more than twenty minutes at a time, oops. _nyahehee, I do love me some semi-cliffhangers._**

 **Adios, and seeya next chapter.**


	7. Chapter 7

**I slept in until 7pm today and decided, what better way to spend a night fueled on Kickstarts and spearmint gum than write? Because I've literally got nothing else of value I could be doing. There gon be some fighting later on in this chapter, folks. Mmm, yes, _spicy_. I think this is the longest chapter yet, too? _Nice_.**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: Steven Universe belongs to the wonderful Rebecca Sugar!**

* * *

Garnet's hands experimentally held the mahogany bubble containing the dangerous item as she stepped off of the warp pad on the hills beside the barn.

Without the distracting ambiance of terror the object naturally seemed to emit, it was easy to study it in further detail. It still, however, left Garnet with a pain in the back of her mind that not even she could come to explain. But it was important that she give the item a thorough once-over.

It appeared to be made of a substance resembling stone, coming in the form of a three-dimensional rhombus. Instead of coming in a clean diamond shape, though, it was split across its centre, faces unsymmetrical to each other.

The way it bore resemblance to the Diamond Communicator taken from the Moon Base, it already was highly unwelcomed by the fusion.

The indecipherable Gem marks on its exterior looked messily carved in, as if done in by a shaky laser or, cruder yet, a dagger or chisel.

She narrowed her eyes behind her visor as she rotated the bubble, getting a better glance at its damaged side. The crack splitting through its bottom half was deep and probably incapable of repair, leaving the object inept.

Yet that didn't explain the strange illusion it had given Garnet when she had touched it. It had to have some magic left inside of it.

She eventually closed in on the barn. A soft golden glow slipped warmly out through the crevice between the closed doors, but only the minute sounds of sifting hay and the occasional turn of a page were to be heard.

Garnet placed the bubble in a free hand before rapping her knuckles on the barn wall. "Sorry to intrude," she greeted coolly, "but Peridot? I have the item."

Suppressed voices met her greeting, followed by a couple indignant yaps-hopefully from Veggie Head-before the barn door was shoved open and Peridot emerged.

Garnet couldn't help but make a comment on the short gem's choice of attire. "Nice shirt."

Peridot stole a glance to her chest, which she must have forgotten was currently sporting a faded red star-printed shirt that she forgot was not hers.

"I didn't expect you back so soon, in my defense!" The green gem squeaked roughly, clenching the rim of Steven's shirt with her hands and rubbing the fabric. Then, taking on a more serious tone, she looked up in earnest at the larger gem. "Don't tell Steven."

Garnet vowed and held up her right hand. "My lips are sealed."

The two made their way over to the pod while Garnet explained in-depth the discovery and known facts about the item sealed in her bubble. Truthfully, the only things they really knew about this item was that it must have come on this pod, and it left Gems with an awful pain when in direct contact.

Peridot had asked to view the bubble on her own, though after holding it for a few moments and giving the object inside an annoyed, confused examination, she handed it back to Garnet.

"I can't say I was ever given knowledge on _whatever_ that is. Although, it does share resemblance to a few communication devices back on Homeworld. The markings, though, set it apart." She rubbed a finger over her eye beneath her tinted visor. "You really weren't kidding about the vision sphere pain," she noted with a growl.

"I wouldn't lie. Were you able to link the apparatus to the compartment you showed me?"

" _Nyahh-_ -" Peridot stammered. "Give me a minute and I will. I decided to follow up your advice about the _break_ thing. It allowed me the time to clear my head of all these cloddy Homeworld predicaments."

"I understand. It's fine, you got some good out of it."

Garnet watched the gem scramble into the pod, getting tangled up in Steven's baggy clothing article an appropriate amount of only four times, before situating herself and pulling up the holographic display.

While she searched, Garnet considered enlightening the gem of the darkness invested in the item. Pearl had been informed of her experience at the crash site sans the most disturbing part, as had Amethyst yet to a lesser extent. Steven remained uninformed, but she saw that this was the best choice at the moment.

Her future vision was unreachable as she tried to see how fruitful their investigation would be. She wanted to believe that this was due to the odd influence of the magical object.

"I do want to warn you again that the object seems very unstable if left bare," Garnet ended up stating. "If the bubble pops while you're diagnosing it-"

"I'll re-bubble it," Peridot affirmed confidently as she rose both hands and pressed her fingertips to the screen, smirking as the pod hummed as if in congratulation while she connected the systems. "I've been practicing on random objects! I'm even utilizing my power to create meep morp out of bubbled commodities," she added exultantly with a cocky undertone. "And the systems are now connected. Can I have the item in question?"

Garnet carefully moved the bubble over to Peridot, relieved when it was passed into her palms and deposited without incident into the square chamber.

To their surprise, the symbols carved into the walls of the compartment began to gleam in response to the new matter.

"Aha! Good, it's picked up the item!" Peridot contently crowed. "Now, to see if the analysis apparatus will be able to get a reading through your bubble. . . "

A mix of neat swipes, taps, and flicks and soon the codes for a processing reading were rolling down the display.

"It's having difficulty performing a proper test.

Both gems waited for the code to translate into legible Gem. Their hopes were dampened when the screen gave a glitch-like quiver. The information cruising down the screen was soon lost to an obsolete screen, flagging its demise with a disheartened electric click.

"Oh, come on!" Peridot cursed, throwing her hands onto the screen and vying for a response. " _Cloddy connection_. . . _**gruhh**._ It's been lost," she bitterly admitted, throwing herself back into the battered pilot's seat and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Not all hope is lost," Garnet commented from the outside, looking in. "Reboot the system, perhaps."

Peridot grumbled and restarted the apparatus, reconnecting the platforms in record timing. "Rebooting system. Now do your job and _analyze!_ "

She slammed her hand exasperatedly on the console, causing the screen before her to fizzle. She immediately withdrew her arm and clutched it to her chest, chanting a quick mantra of " _no_ "'s as she reestablished connection with the pod system.

What escaped her attention was how the open chamber beside her seat had just proceeded to snap shut.

Garnet was obviously the first to notice. "Peridot! The chamber's shut."

Peridot glanced down beside her and gawked. "I don't know if we should interpret this change as good or bad," she remarked warily.

And as if some wielder of fate had heard the Peridot's words and taken it like a theatrical cue, the sunken panel began to glare an intense white. In addition, the pod around Peridot seemed to react to it, beginning to wildly rattle and discharging an unfriendly screeching noise.

" _Gah_! Bad sign, _bad sign_!"

"Disconnect the program!"

The green gem suddenly ducked out of sight, dropping to the floor and frantically pounded at the glowing panel. "It's not opening!" Shrilled Peridot after her efforts proved futile. She shot her hand down hard, only to see the panel dissolve.

The bubble had been popped when the chamber closed, leaving it revealed to open air. And in turn, to Peridot's outstretched palm.

"Peridot, get away from the panel!"

The very tip of the small gem's index made contact with the surface of the shuddering item. She felt her mind become awash with dazzling white, her body desensitized, as diluted strain rushed up her fingertips.

The only thing that stopped Peridot's hand from making further contact was Garnet's hand as she gripped the back of her t-shirt and ripped her out of the cockpit.

"It popped!" Peridot mewed, voice raw with fright as she gazed in disbelief at her hand. She'd gotten so close to touching it; her skin tingled, leaving behind a very unpleasant sensation that died off as it tried crawling up her forearm.

"And you laid hands on it," Garnet chastised. "You shouldn't have been so reckless."

As soon as the illusion of white faded, leaving the gem behind disoriented, aching, and incensed, she was quick to defend herself. "It was one finger, and I was _trying_ to reopen the panel! _Stars_ know what that thing could do without us keeping watch on it!"

"You should have been more cautious. You should have considered the possibility that the bubble could have been popped by the seal."

Peridot clamped her mouth shut begrudgingly and brought her arms up over her hair in utter grievance, wrenching her eyes shut to will away the pang offending the area behind her eyes. " _Nyagh_. My head!"

"I'll recapture the item," Garnet ordered, setting Peridot down by the scruff of Steven's shirt. She leaned inside the device and readily intercepted the humming object, sealing it securely in a bubble. The pod ceased its shrieking, and all power seemed to cut out, leaving the two gems with nothing but moonlight to make do with.

Garnet summoned her gauntlets to handle the bubble for extra precaution. Facing Peridot, she hid the bubbled item but stopped when she noticed something different from when she had last held it.

The bottom half of the magic object, the damaged side, was now spotless. The lacerations that had been there were gone, suceeded by an immaculate replacement. The sigils carved into its tetrahedral faces were emitting a gentle white glow now, even without any kind of direct physical contact.

 _". . . It was fixed?"_

"What's going on out here? Peridot?"

Garnet turned to see Lapis flying swiftly over, face flushed a deeper blue with concern. "I heard something from the barn."

"Peridot was very nearly cracked just now," the fusion explained with a frown, staring down at the grimacing Peridot she spoke of. Her hands were clasped over her gem like it would help appease the throbbing. "There was an error while running a diagnosis on this."

Lapis inspected the item with fleeting, dulled interest, but Garnet could see she only had eyes for the muttering Peridot at the moment. "What happened?"

"Garnet should be the gem to explain," Peridot grunted, letting Lapis grab her to observe her for the acclaimed 'crack'. "My gem is fine," she consoled after enough concerned pawing, bringing Lapis' hands down from her hair to her shoulders.

The barn gems turned in sync towards Garnet, one with a face aflame with demand for answers and the other with atypical dread.

"I'm afraid that this item is more trouble than we're ready to tackle," the large gem conceded. "I'm going to send it back to the Temple where it cannot harm anyone."

"But why is it dangerous? What is it doing?" Questioned Lapis. "The pod made an _awful_ noise and there was yelling. . ."

Garnet's lips pursed. Her mind had been feeding a possible theory regarding the item since its discovery and the vision she'd received from it. It was dark and terrible, but realistically, it was deemed accurate by all that Garnet knew of magical gem relics. She was challenged on whether or not to elaborate on that thought.

She instead followed her most optimistic, but most useless, train of thought. "I'm not sure, Lapis. But what I am certain of is that it's a danger to each gem here, and is best saved for when we have the know-how of how to properly handle its power."

Lapis ran an unreadable gaze over Garnet before turning her attention back to Peridot. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, Laz, I'm fine. Just. . . _geh_ , dizzy."

Garnet sent the bubble off to the Bubble Room with an internal _good riddance_. Peridot had finally stopped kneading her hair when the sound of a warp pad ignited in the distance. It earned all three gems' attention as they watched Pearl and Amethyst race up the hill to meet them.

"Garnet!" Pearl gasped as she skidded to a halt. "There's corruption activity in the mountains again. Steven's television was covering a story on strange lights over the jungle biome there, and-"

"I think they're _new_ corruptions!" Amethyst cut in, too impatient to wait and relay her perspective. "Like, they were gems like us until recently!"

" _New_ corruptions?" Garnet repeated. "That's impossible. You know as well as I that-"

Amethyst interrupted again, shaking her wild mane of lavender hair stubbornly. "No, it's not impossible! We all know what bad stuff went down at beta Kindergarten with Jasper! What we saw on Steven's T.V., he and I were on the same page: that it looked like the early stage of corruption!"

A peek to Pearl showed that the white gem wasn't offering any sort of altercation to what the Quartz was saying. If anything, she looked as if she were brewing in a similar mindset to Amethyst.

"Very well. We'll return to hunt the monsters down." She paused, frowning whilst raising a hand to her visor. "I don't understand how I missed them. . . "

"We need to hurry. From what we viewed, they're not afraid of interaction with humans. _Violent_ interaction."

That was the final straw for the team. The Gems hastened back to the warp pad, all gathering atop it in suspense-ridden quietude. Peridot and Lapis seemed to briefly indulge in whispered discussion with one another before the smaller of the two broke away with a determined face. "I'm coming too!"

"You sure? You look kinda like you just got hit by your own tractor, dude," Amethyst remarked as she hopped onto the warp pad, eyeing Peridot quizzically.

Peridot fumed and trudged onto the device. "I'm fine, for the millionth time!" She groused, sourly crossing her arms as she stared at her yellow-tipped feet.

"I'll allow it," Garnet stated, cutting off Pearl's twitter of concern.

With the Crystal Gems finally congregated, with Garnet about to actuate the warp, Lapis stepped with newfound purpose onto the platform. "Me too."

She was met with an stoic face, an eager grin, and lastly two surprised faces. "That, I will also allow," Garnet surmised. "But we need to go now if what Pearl and Amethyst said is true. Understand that this mission will be dangerous, you two."

"Aren't all missions in one way or another moderately endangering?"

"That's the spirit, Pear!"

It was crowded on the face of the warp pad, but once Garnet willed the device to life all issues about whose elbow was digging into whose abdomen were helpfully forgotten.

The wilderness of the Himalayas surrounded them, cloaked in an indulgent blanket of darkness that didn't fail to maximize the underlying dread. When they stepped off of the warp, Garnet assigned them into groups.

"Pearl, you will go with Lapis and Peridot. Amethyst, with me."

Peridot's concerns must have been allayed since she let out a relieved sigh as she walked over to the ocean gem, who nodded at her, also coming off as pretty relieved, before looking back up to see Pearl approaching them.

"You sure it's a good idea to be splittin' up?" Amethyst inquired, arms over her gem complemented by a nerve-fueled frown.

"If there were numerous corruptions like you claimed, it's best to fan out and search instead of band together. We will cover more ground, and find them in lesser time. We don't need to be as careful since Steven is at the Temple."

The group shared a brief discussion over rendezvous points and what to do in the event of an emergency. In other words, what to do if you found yourself face-to-face with a gem monster.

Pearl, Lapis, and Peridot started off on foot, but the ocean gem soon grew restless and resorted to using her wings to fly above the treetops to get a bird's eye view.

Pearl regarded the slim blue gem absentmindedly before turning her attention to Peridot, who seemed much less enthusiastic about corruption hunting than she had been in the beta Kindergarten when they secured Jasper's imprisoned army.

"What we saw on Steven's television was unlike what we last dealt with together," the paler gem explained as she leaped down a steep cliff face, turning to watch Peridot do so safely as well. "These beasts appear much more belligerent. More _fight_ than _flight_ , so to speak."

"Then we'll need a plan!" The green gem decided. "If we were to effectively employ the trees here-"

"I believe it would be best if we simply kept to tracking the corruptions down and bubbling them as quickly and accurately as possible." Pearl stopped her, reaching up for her gem and pulling out her spear. She caught Peridot's envious eyes darting to the ground. "You wouldn't happen to have a weapon of some sort to defend yourself with?"

The short gem shortened into a quick stop, placing a hand tentatively over the gem. "I always bring this along now in case of events such as this." She paused as her fingers traced along the edge of her visor, before she turned away her face to take it off. Pearl saw her forehead gleam in the dark before dimming, and she turned back with a fair-sized metal rod gripped in her hands.

"I see."

Lapis soon transpired, flustered and winding through the arthritic boughs of the trees and dropping down beside Peridot. "I've spotted something that way." She pointed to their northeast. "It looked like what you described."

"Then let's not waste any more precious time," Pearl sufficed and vaulted off in Lapis' prescribed direction. Peridot had a difficult time keeping up, stumbling and tripping over upturned roots and clumps of greenery, ending up hooked in Lapis' arms as she flew to keep in pace with the faster white gem.

Sure enough, when the trio traveled far enough they were able to hear the sounds of uncontrolled rampancy crashing in the vegetation around them. They were stopped in a clearing flanked by a gurgling spring which Lapis quickly hailed to her side at the first sign of enemy activity.

They didn't have to wait long for it to emerge from the line of trees.

It was stout in nature, hunched over with bulging shoulders that towered above its twitching head. A mane of what looked to be obsidian-hued rock shrouded its face, shaped into a nappy square. Heat that even they could feel radiated ardently off of its blocky red physique, amassing near its stubby claws as the ground underfoot charred beneath its weight.

It, too, had the same contorting features that the creatures on Steven's T.V. had. Its limbs bulged before sinking back in on themselves, it twitched and shook like fighting with some paranormal force was at war with it, and lastly, the way it to stumbled around like a disoriented animal.

It appeared to be roughly the height of Lapis, and could have been considered one of the easier-looking foes they had fought.

When it turned its eyeless face to them however, the unmistakable emotion of malice was carved into each and every rocky line there. That quickly set off all of their alarm bells.

It charged them, tongues of deep red flame shot out from its unhinged jaws as all three Gems scattered, diving into the positions they had strategized beforehand. Pearl spun her spear and delved left while Peridot and Lapis moved together, one flying with water forming a sharp-looking arc in front of her while the other brandished her rod.

The beast decided to head after Pearl first. Its stocky body heaved itself towards her, making a cursory jump for the white gem. Pearl evaded the attack, skidding into a crouch before leaping for the beast's back, spear raised and ready to thrust into its spine.

It spun around and intercepted Pearl's attack, using the coarse block of stone shielding its head to deflect the tip of her spear. Unbalanced, Pearl was thrown off and into a nearby tree trunk. The monster pounded over and opened its jaws to blast the downed Pearl, but immediately ceased when an object was flung against its face.

" _Ha_! Take that, stupid!"

Peridot stood behind the creature, hand outstretched as she began to whack her thick steel rod against it again and again until it had had enough. With an angered bellow the smoking corruption reared up on its hind legs and focused on the smallest of the group.

Flame gathered in the back of its throat as it bore down on her, releasing a mighty string of fire that shot right for Peridot's face. She shrieked, throwing her arms up to protect her gem before a sizzle rocked the air. Looking up, the ball of flame was no more, replaced instead by a grim Lapis with a shield of water protecting the both of them. She dissipated the buffer and began to bombard the creature with bullets of water.

It roared in such a way that it borderlined a gurgling wail of pain as its skin swelled in the places where Lapis' water had landed hits. It proceeded to back away from the water-wielding gem, but the instant Lapis ceased her assault to check on Peridot it jumped back up, recuperated.

It shot a pillar of flame towards Lapis from its maw, catching her side. She dropped from the air onto the ground, wrapping her wing around the afflicted arm with a hiss of pain. A now invigorated Peridot stepped defensively in front of Lapis, fists clenched as she restored control over her weapon and flung it into the beast's head.

It didn't penetrate, but it collided with enough force that the beast messily took a step back with a disgruntled snarl.

A second roar ruptured the night air, causing everyone to look up and stare in the direction it originated from.

" _Another!?_ " Peridot shrieked, gripping her iron rod tighter as another monster crashed through the undergrowth. It was identical to the first, except it had its gem placed on its bicep rather than its stomach.

" _What_?" Pearl squawked maniacally, spinning around just in time to have the second beast headbutt her straight into Peridot behind her. Both gems were flung to the ground, groaning.

" _Ugh_ , enough of this!" Lapis growled, aggregating all the water from their environment and throwing it onto one huge collective bubble above her head. " _Now!_ "

She threw her arms out towards the two magma beasts, dousing them in the water and watching as their bodies whistled in reaction to the fluid. The flames growing on their backs were snuffed out, and embers spattered pathetically out from their jaws as they tried to drown their ground assailants in flame.

The ground party scrambled off of each other. Peridot diverted their attention by proceeding to jab them persistently with her weapon as Pearl assaulted their original enemy. She raced beneath its stocky legs to its exposed underbelly, racing her spear along its exposed flesh. Its final cry ripped through the night as hot dust exploded around the clearing, showering Pearl in embers as its gem dropped to the soil.

Peridot was busy fighting with the other monster, with it having caught her rod in its jaws and was violently jerking this way and that as she tried to pull it back with her ferrokenesis. Both Pearl and Lapis utilized its agitated engrossment with Peridot's powers, with Lapis shaping the springwater into a barrage of sharp-tipped arrows and flinging them at the beast while Pearl mimicked her last technique by sliding beneath it and dragging her spear over its soft underside.

It poofed, an anguished scream escaping as red dust blasted them, leaving its gem clacking down beside the other.

Lapis dropped back to the earth, crouching beside Peridot as she collapsed onto her back with a heavy groan. "That was terrible."

"You did a good job whacking them with the rod, if it makes you feel better."

Peridot could only snort in lackluster amusement in response as she pushed herself up onto her feet, dusting herself off. She sighed sadly when she saw that the flames and embers had eaten away at half of Steven's t-shirt.

"I guess I won't be returning this to Steven."

Lapis lifted a brow. "I don't think you ever planned to anyway."

When they turned back towards where the beasts had poofed, Pearl stood holding two faint teal bubbles, visibly shaken.

"I don't understand. . ." She murmured, peering through the bubbles to the gems inside. "I recognize this gem."

Lapis and Peridot exchanged a confused look before rushing over to Pearl to behold their captures. Two deep crimson decahedron gems were inside, with rings around them. Both bore identical square faces.

Peridot blinked. "They're rubies?"

"What were they doing here?" Pearl whispered. "I suppose they could have remained from the Gem War, but with what Amethyst said about _new_ corruptions. . . "

From their recent spats with the squad of Homeworld Rubies, it was foolish to discard the possibility of more being sent to Earth. After all, they never were able to report a victory to Homeworld, since they were all floating aimlessly about in outer space now.

Peridot chewed her fingers nervously as she eyed the bubbled gems. "Do you think they have the same mission as the others? Looking for _her_?"

Lapis gingerly placed her hand on the quivering gem's shoulder, warily inspecting the contents before her through squinted eyes. "Why would they need to send more? Didn't they send a report or something in on the Moon Base?"

Pearl's teeth dug tautly into her lower lip. "No, I'm afraid not. The control system there was destroyed. By us." The blue gem, unsurprised, aloofly huffed.

Pearl proceeded to send the bubbles back to the Temple, face tense with thought as she mentally calculated how she would explain what they had seen and done. The three started on their way again, heading to the first rendezvous point the Crystal Gems had established. They were ordered to head there after their first capture to report findings.

More often than not, the distant scree of a corrupted gem could be heard as they quietly made way to the point. It was a haunting reminder that there were still more beasts to be caught. Lapis was flying with Peridot hung in her arms again while Pearl raced on foot across the wild trails of the mountains.

When they did close in on the landmark Garnet had chosen, it was everything they could do not to halt in their tracks at the sight before them.

Garnet and Amethyst were already there, both looking battered and scraped, the shorter gem moreso. She was supporting Garnet as the fusion muttered incoherent things to herself, voice cracking every other word.

Something was wrong. They dashed up to the others, taking the sight in with wide-blown eyes.

The fusion's form flickered and petered out as she leaned heavily on the Quartz. Her hand hand was clenched tightly to her chest as she gritted out the words, "we need to return to the Temple. _Now_."

Pearl frowned, not quite understanding the situation fully in her puzzlement. They still had to hunt down and bubble the rest of the corruptions running loose. "But we haven't-"

" _Now,_ Pearl!"

Pearl shut her mouth at Garnet's contentious bark, unwilling to agitate their leader further when she seemed so. . unstable? She hurried over to Garnet and alleviated some of the weight Amethyst bore by trying to wrap Garnet's right arm around her shoulders.

"No," Garnet snapped, pulling her arm from Pearl, voice hitching as her form experienced a violent tremor. "Just get to the nearest warp," she hissed frostily. "We need Steven."

Peridot, who was cowering to the sides at seeing the two stronger gems so beaten, finally spoke up with a stammer. ". . . W-What for?"

Amethyst flashed her green friend a nervous look, before looking up to Garnet and whispering something panicked and inaudible to the wounded fusion. Said fusion grunted, hesitant, before opening her right fist, prying it slowly from her heaving chest and revealing it for all to see.

A deep crack was split through Sapphire's gem.

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 **[sucks teeth] Well, that ain't healthy. You should really see a gem doc or somethin', Garnet. Sorry for the cliff-hanger, by the way. They're fun!**


	8. Chapter 8

**To make up for the cliffhanger last chapter, I vowed to make sure this was out on New Year's Eve. I failed. I ended up getting it done the next day. I blame Tumblr and Mariah Carey, personally. I apologize in advance for the kinda maybe _shorter-than-normal_ chapter! I usually tend to have the minimum be 4K this deep in! Buuuut, some things you just can't milk because it'll get meticulous reading.**

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 **Disclaimer: Steven Universe doesn't belong to me! Thank Rebecca Sugar for it!**

* * *

"Come on, Dogcopter! You can do it!"

The renowned mutt soared with a proud thrum of the propeller sprouting from his back over Steven's head, taking on the combined forces of the Cookie Cat armada spilling in from outer space. Steven kept in messy pace with the high-speed galactic chase, bouncing from meteor to meteor to get the best view of the confrontation.

 _"Good thing I don't need to breathe in dreams!"_ the boy mused to himself as he ducked with a yip under an enemy missile that had gone off-course. _"Or else jumping around like this would be really uncomfortable! Probably painful too."_

Steven landed with a rigid grunt on the face of the next space rock, feeling like his lungs concaved into his chest despite their lack of air. "Yep, perfect landing," he wheezed, pushing himself upright to see Dogcopter now completely surrounded by the Cookie Cat army.

The grey dog spun sharply and fixed his awed onlooker with an aghast stare. "Steven! Help!"

A gasp escaped Steven as he stared, awestruck, up at the flying Dachshund. "I'm here! I'm right here!" He shouted, flailing his arms. "What do you want me to do?" He couldn't believe it - Dogcopter, hero extraordinaire, wanted _his_ help!

"Steven! You've got to-"

Steven's bounding across the meteor belt faltered as Dogcopter's cut-off bark rung out again, this time sounding notably more dire.

"What?" He cried helplessly at his hero as the first phalanx of Cookie Cats honed in, cannons and lasers at the ready. "What do you want me to do!"

Dogcopter twisted, face strewn with terror for his onlooker as gunfire engulfed them as the fleet released their blasters. " _You've got to-_ "

" **Wake up! Steven**!"

" _AAAH!_ "

Steven's eyes shot open. Shaking hands were wrapped around his shoulders, squeezing with enough nervous force to leave handprints imprinted there later. He squinted, struggling to deduce jus _t who_ had shaken him awake.

A blurry Pearl came into focus, and next to her was the unmistakable purple of Amethyst. From what he could see, both their faces were wracked with some emotion his sleepy brain couldn't identify.

Before he could take in anything else, something white gleamed in the corners of his sleep-slurred vision, followed by a dismayed cry.

"Sapphire! What are you doing?!"

The sleep was forcefully rubbed from his groggy brain as the boy shot up at Ruby's shocked outcry. "Ruby!" Steven sputtered, swiping crust from his eyelids as he took in the scene before him. ". . . Sapphire?"

On the lower level of the house two small forms dithered, one red and holding the other's white-gloved hand like letting go for the slightest of moments would end up in tragedy. Sapphire's form fizzled, her hair once so refined now frayed and furled. Ruby crouched over her, steam rising from her cheeks as her tears were evaporated as soon as they slipped from the corners of her eyes.

"Why'd you unfuse!" Ruby demanded, shakily reaching out to wrap her arms longingly around her wounded lover. "Garnet could take it!"

"But _you_ can't!" The blue gem whispered, throwing her head back as a thrill rippled through her physical form. Ruby crooned over Sapphire, like hiding her away from the eyes of the others would assauge the pain.

Speaking of the others, Ruby finally seemed to have noticed Steven's awakening and cried for action. "Well, don't just stand there and _look_!" She demanded hotly, flames practically flaring from her nostrils. "Help her!"

Steven could already feel dryness creep up his throat, washing out all moisture like he'd just tried to swallow a palmful of sand. "I-I'm coming!" He sputtered, ripping himself away from Pearl and stumbling his way down the stairs towards Ruby and Sapphire.

The boy lifted his hands as a sign of pace, palms facing Ruby, as he noticed how the hot-tempered gem's body stiffened as he stepped closer. "It's okay! I-I'm gonna-" What _was_ he going to do, exactly? "What's wrong!"

Ruby's teeth gritted as she stared down at Sapphire, whose bangs had been swept out of her face in her physical peril. Her eye stared directly forward, pupil shriveled until it was but a pinprick of dark against blue. Suddenly it felt much harder to maintain her urgent composure.

"Her gem is cracked, Steven!" She spat, shuffling around to cradle her counterpart's head in her lap, careful not to burn her winsome light azure hair on her thighs. "You- You gotta help her! _She's_ -" She couldn't find any more words to use that wouldn't send the others running for the hills for fear of being severely burnt. "Just use your powers!"

Anguish welled up inside of Steven as he scampered over to Sapphire's side, taking her complexion into account. The stoic gem's face was unmoving as she bore into the ceiling above.

In his single second of observation, however, her features began to contort into what could only be branded as horror. A pitiful stream of incoherent mumbles poured from her lips as she stared at something no one else in the room could. She instinctively retracted her hand to her chest, hiding the cracked gem from its only hope.

"Sapphire! It's me, Steven!" Steven fell to his knees, already feeling the weight of the situation dig into his chest. Wet tear streaks decorated his ample cheeks as he reached out and placed a hand comfortingly on the injured gem's shoulder pad. "You have to let me help you!"

She gave her first sign of acknowledgment that she had heard him. Her head agonizingly tilted until her big eye was transfixed on Steven, saying the millions of things that she physically could not. But the most obvious of them was all her unsaid plea.

Ruby guided her hand with tearful whispers of encouragement towards Steven, who readily accepted it into his own. He sucked at his teeth when Sapphire's dainty hand was enveloped in his; he hadn't expected her skin to be so _cold!_

"O-Okay!" he announced like it would help. "I'm gonna do it! Please, _just_. . just bear with me, okay?"

He sucked and spat until a generous amount of saliva was plastered onto his exposed palm. He gently pulled Sapphire's hand into as steady a grip as he could muster. He wrenched his eyes shut with a "here goes!" as he pressed his saliva-coated palm to her gem.

The tension borne from unwillingness to wait in the room was palpable. The moonlight waning in through his upstairs bedroom window painted the house in a mirage of diluted greys. Pearl and Amethyst stood together, the taller down on one knee and the other holding onto her bare shoulder like a lifeline. Peridot and Lapis hovered by the fireplace, watching the harrowing scene unfold through dark eyes.

Steven only opened his eyes when a gentle glittery sound pierced the veil of quietude. He dared let his eyes slip open to view its source.

Nestled carefully between his own larger hands, Sapphire's gem glinted as the healing magic performed its duty. The saliva dribbled into the deep chink in the triangular face of her gem, and before their very eyes it sealed. In mere seconds, the gem was shining with as much valiant luster as the North Star.

Steven laughed victoriously, but it was not long before his glorious giggles dissolved into sobs. Ruby, too, was a steaming mess with tears that tried so desperately to escape before evaporating from her skin.

" _You're gonna be just fine, Sapph_ ," she murmured into her lover's hair, gingerly taking it in between her fingers and moving them away from her eye. " _See? Your gem's all fixed! Good as new_!"

The red gem's voice was the catalyst for Sapphire's return to the world.

"Thank you, Steven." Sapphire's voice was not weak nor feeble, yet it carried with it a sentimental fragility that Steven had never heard from her before. It left him internally pegging for something more. Was she _okay_? How did she _feel_? When did this _happen_? _What. . ._

"What happened!" Was the first thing to blurt out of Steven's mouth before he could stop himself.

Their onlookers took Steven's outburst as a sign it would be appropriate to approach now. All gems, save for Amethyst who had been at the scene, were craving answers. They had stayed back to allow Steven space to perform his magic without accidental distraction on their behalf.

That, and none of them really fancied getting an angry and heat-blasted punch from Ruby for taking a senseless step too close.

Sapphire was focused on Ruby instead of Steven's burst, frantically consoling her now lamenting partner. Convulsive cries tumbled quietly out of Ruby's lips as Sapphire comfortingly took her cheeks in her gloved palms, silencing the red gem's weeps with a kiss.

"I'm here, Ruby," she lulled, pressing her forehead to Ruby's and waiting until the keening gem reached up to cup her hand over the one on her cheek. "I know," Ruby rasped, leaning her face into Sapphire's glove like it was her one and only salvation in life. "I know."

They were lost in each other until Sapphire's eye lifted and latched onto Steven's misty gaze. Along with the line of distressed gems behind him.

"Oh thank goodness," Pearl sighed from behind Amethyst, placing her hand on the shorter gem's head. Whether it was to placate herself or Amethyst, no one could tell. The barn gems were closer to Steven. Peridot's expression was filled with a fluttering wariness, and Lapis was crouched against her, regarding Steven in concern as the floodgates threatened to break loose.

"What happened to you guys?" He demanded, twisting around insistently. He nearly knocked into Lapis, who caught him in her slender arms when he swayed. She shared a look with Peridot, who turned to Amethyst with a shrug. It would be best if the gem who had been present were to explain, after all.

"What?" The purple gem hissed, hitching her shoulders up to her neck like she was clueless. "You guys want _me_ to do the story telling tonight?"

"Now is no time to be facetious, Amethyst."

"I know, _P_ \- _I just_ -" Amethyst regathered her bearings, running a chubby hand through her wild lilac hair. "It was really rough. Gimme a sec."

Ruby and Sapphire were in their own world, the latter speaking so quietly that unless you were an inch away from her mouth it would have been inaudible. Ruby was diligently listening to her, face morphed into something unreadable: uncharacteristic for her, especially after such a powerful expulsion of emotion only minutes prior.

Steven wondered why they hadn't fused back into Garnet yet.

Peridot and Lapis ended up flanking Steven, shoulders pressed to his whilst offering their soundless support as Amethyst began to run through the events of the night. Pearl stood next to her, expression wavering with unnameable emotions showing through at different intervals.

Steven listened without making a single noise, other than the breaths he had to force himself to remember to take.

"Garnet and I found a corrupted monster. It was really weird-looking, too, like- like what was on Steven's TV. And. . yeah, it kinda had something just _wrong_ about it. It was okay at first, 'n then another came out! It was different, like, all _fiery_ and _rocky_ , and it wasn't lettin' us off without a _really_ serious beat-down." She looked down to the clusters of scrapes and blushing bruises that were on her arms.

"It wasn't good," she continued. "I-" she tried, but ended up losing her voice.

"I got thrown off to the side, into some dumb forest ravine! And when I got back, Garnet had fired off her gauntlets to poof one of 'em, 'n. . y'know how that pretty much leaves her gems exposed?"

Pearl nodded, gently placing her hand on the explaining Quartz' shoulder. "I think we can imagine what took place from there," she consoled. "You did the best you could."

"Yeah, but it wasn't enough to help Garnet," the purple gem grunted nonchalantly, hugging her arms to her ches.

She drummed her fingers against her knee before looking up to Steven and Peridot. "Peridot, you would'a recognized it, right? The way these things _looked_?"

Peridot's lips compressed. "It _was_ different. Different from what I'd previously seen in the beta Kindergarten," she offered uselessly. "They were altering their complexion. However, I wouldn't use the term like it was on their own account. Like _shape-shifting_. If anything, it was mutation."

Steven recalled Smoky Quartz' face-off against Jasper, and the corruption that engulfed her after she had forced one of her monsters into fusion. Fresh guilt sunk in the pit of his stomach when he remembered how he couldn't save her. _"If she'd just listened. . . "_ He looked down to his gem, placing a hand over his shirt. Lapis detected the boy's melancholy and draped an arm over his shoulder, earning the small smile she was hoping to inspire.

"It almost appeared as though they were still in the process corrupting," Pearl murmured, eyes growing clouded as distant memories resurfaced. Presumably horrific ones.

"Exactly!" Amethyst went on, guardedly clenching her fists. "What did I tell you? Those _things_ out there were-"

"Not meant to have been corrupted."

All eyes turned painstakingly over to who'd spoken. Sapphire had lifted herself up to her feet, assisted by an earnest Ruby whose eyes were distant and dusky with unspoken thoughts.

Sapphire held her hands together, slim fingers tangling together as she met Ruby's pensive eyes. With a tender hug the two eloped into a brief blaze of light, and in their places stood Garnet.

"Garnet!" Steven cried, and after being released from Lapis' hug he rushed over to cling to the large gem's leg. "

It was easy to interpret the uneasiness in her visage without her visor.

"The gems we fought today were new arrivals to Earth," the fusion began, closing her eyes. "For reasons I haven't been able to conclude yet. What I do know is that they have come, though something went terribly wrong when they entered orbit."

Pearl grimaced. "But how were they _corrupted?_ We've entered and exited through the atmosphere on numerous occasions, and never had anything like _that_ happen!"

Garnet's lips pursed in a frown as her eyes focused on her gem-studded hands, with Ruby's reaching over to gently caress the triangle-aspected face of Sapphire's. "I have an idea. But I won't be pinning down any reasons until we've gathered further evidence."

"Maybe it was the thing they came in that corrupted them," Steven muttered, yet even he looked disbelieving. "The pod? But. . . we don't know anything about it, do we?"

"That's not necessarily truthful. I managed to pry into its database, and there was nothing within its systems that had. . . _corruption_ transcribed anywhere in it!" Peridot shook her head. "We don't have anything like it on Homeworld. Why Homeworld vessels would carry an element for it- _wherever_ it comes from- is beyond me."

Pearl had come around to hover beside her leader, hands clasped in front of her chest as she mulled over the new information. "How do you know this, Garnet?" She prompted. "All this about Homeworld."

Something raw and grievous stormed across the fusion's face. "When a gem is cracked during fusion, all gems involved undergo the effect. When Sapphire's gem was cracked, she suffered from intense convulsions from her future vision. I unfused to protect Ruby from that."

Steven hugged Garnet's thigh just a bit tighter.

"Sapphire foresaw the future. The most probable one, based on the path fate has decided to take." The maroon gem looked up to scan each gem's faces. Pearl's eyes were wide and swimming with concern. Amethyst, vigilance. Peridot and Lapis bore mirrored expressions, riddled with misgiving as they sat together.

"These crafts were not meant to crash. They were part of a larger team, the rest of whom I can only assume are waiting their appropriate turn to enter Earth's atmosphere."

"But why would they wanna start sendin' more _gems_?" Amethyst scoffed. "Everytime they send someone over here, they're never comin' back! Don't they realize that yet?" Her features quickly hardened with sour realization. "Are they still hunting for Peri?"

"Th-They wouldn't warrant an entire brigade just to hunt _me_ down!" Peridot squeaked. "I was just starting taking the benefit of the doubt and suspecting she believed I was shattered when she detonated the communicator!"

"I'd like to see them try," Lapis uttered. "This is our home now." Her hand reached out to Peridot's, clasping it and giving a reassuring squeeze.

"They're here for different reasons," clarified Garnet. "Something bigger. Something much more catastrophic."

Pearl bit her tightened knuckles, paled into an even more astonishing white. "You can't possibly be insinuating that Homeworld is returning to its. . . _original_ modifications for Earth?"

Garnet offered no reply.

A frustrated growl escaped Amethyst as she grasped her thick mane, arching her back with resentment. "Haven't they taken the hint by now? Earth belongs to _us!_ "

Pearl's voice shook. "Homeworld doesn't care whether or not you own the right to anything," she bitterly commented. "All they care about are what resources a planet can harbor for their expanding Empire."

Peridot, who had remained silent throughout the entire discussion of Homeworld invasion, offered her own thesis. "Especially at times like this," she gingerly said. All gems faced her as she elaborated. "Homeworld has been running low on resources for decades. They can't just make gems like they used to - all they can make do with is gems like me." Peridot opened her small hands, staring into her green palms with internal chagrin.

"Gems unable to modify their physical form. They replaced powers that Era 1 gems were given with technology since it was easier to create a machine rather than compile all the materials necessary for creating a full gem."

"Peridot, you _are_ a full gem!" Steven flung himself at Peridot, and the rewarding sound of her sputtering in surprise as warm arms crushed her was enough for him to let her go. "You're a Crystal Gem! And _you_ being _you_ is all you'll ever need to be!"

Blue rose to the green gem's cheeks as Steven smothered her. She would never admit to being fond of hugging- at least, not in front of _everyone_ -but she did briefly return the gesture of affection before shoving him off with a playful snort. "Understood," she gave up." Besides, I've got _metal powers_! I'd like to see Yellow Diamond's cloddy face when she sees that this puny Era 2 _Peridot_ does have the capacity for power!"

Steven beamed at her before focusing on the rest of the gems.

"We're gonna just need to be careful about this, I think," the boy said. "We- We don't know what they want, or what they're here for! Hopefully they're just stopping by for a check-up on an old temple, or something simple that doesn't mean they're _really_ coming back!"

Pearl smiled patiently at the boy, albeit there was something deep and sad there that Steven faltered upon reading.

"Steven is right."

The team faced Garnet, who had risen with dignity as she assumed control over the new mission at hand. "We must be cautious. We have theories about Homeworld's return, though theories have never been enough to fully disclose anything."

"We can't just let them stomp all over the Earth! Who knows what would happen if they directly encounter humankind?" Pearl flustered. She cupped her mouth, shoulders hunching as vivid memories resurfaced. "If it would be anything like it was over five thousand years ago. . ."

"It won't be anything like that," promised Garnet. "Because the Crystal Gems are _still_ the guardians of this planet, and thereby humanity."

Amethyst whooped and pulled Pearl into a side-hug around the waist. "Yeah! The Homegirls got another thing comin' if they think they can just waltz on in here and mess up _our_ Earth!"

Even Peridot had taken on a more uplifted character, standing determined with her hands resting on her wide hips. Lapis followed suit by standing, watching the beaming green gem with faintly fond eyes as she began to smugly ramble about how inferior Homeworld was in terms of _passion_ or whatever.

"Our first step," Garnet stated whilst dipping her head as she summoned her visor to obscure her eyes from the others. She ran her gaze over each gem, fixing it solely on Peridot for the mere fraction of a second before moving it onto the warp pad.

"Checking the Prime Kindergarten."

* * *

 **I'm really confused because my room smells like lemons. Like, someone just doused the whole place in lemon Pledge. Huh.**

 **And yayy, we're really getting into the main plotline now! My favorite chapter is gonna be comin' up soon, too.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hi! Welcome back to Hope of Morning! I'd like to firstly point out that there will be _no_ spoilers from the recent Stevenbomb leaked* on the Cartoon Network app in this story until the appropriate airtime of January 30! Meaning, I won't bring up anything that may spoil something for anyone who doesn't wanna see anything about it.**

 **This _is_ canon-divergent after Three Gems and a Baby - think of it like an alternate universe. _Yeahh_.**

 **Maybe after its proper release on television, I will corporate some elements about Gemkind learned from the stuff but otherwise, nothing but my own headcanons and theories will be in this thing! Thank you!**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: Steven Universe is owned by Rebecca Sugar.**

* * *

A sinister haze laid over the lifeless cliff walls of the Kindergarten, adding to the site's ominous ambiance. Nothing other than the pitter-patter of feet across the dark ground could be heard, and the occasional snippet of chatter from someone making a comment about how the place seemed to be holding up. Or, more commonly, just how _eerie_ it all still was.

Lapis had chosen to stay behind at the barn, leaving the remainder of the gems to warp their way into the abandoned gem site.

Steven trotted alongside Peridot and Amethyst while Garnet and Pearl strode dutifully ahead, sharing quiet, stringent conversation between them.

The purple gem was eyeing the countless humanoid-shaped holes dotting the walls with that Steven thought could have been nostalgia. He really didn't know just how long Amethyst was in the Kindergarten without anyone or maybe even anything else; it must have been depressingly lonely. He knew he wouldn't be able to deal with nothing around for more than a couple hours in this joint, at best.

Peridot was squinting at the broken and tired injectors. He wished he could've dismissed the faint interest in her eyes for something else. _"Old habits die hard, I guess,"_ he thought heedfully before dragging his eyes away from Peridot.

The silence stretching between the three short gems until Amethyst let out a disinterested noise. "So what _exactly_ are we lookin' for here, Garnet?" She groaned ahead to the larger gems. "'Cuz it's looking like a bunch of nothing right now. There's been nothing new here for ages. I doubt anyone's gonna want this run-down place to do some dirty gem business."

Garnet and Pearl stopped ahead of them. "If there were any place Homeworld gems would flock to on another planet, it would be to previously established gem sites," Garnet supplied curtly.

"And this was the _Prime_ Kindergarten," Pearl added. "So it definitely held the most profitable value to them."

"You mean it made the most gems?" Steven inquired, taking a moment to stare at the endless patterns of gem-shaped pockets all around them. It definitely _looked_ the part - and this place went on for what felt like ever.

"But would they really be assigned _here_?" cut in Peridot, eyes half-lidded and unimpressed. "Granted," she pressed, splaying out her hands as she talked, "this _was_ the first Kindergarten founded and still remains the only truly conventional gem creation site on Earth."

"The point, Peridot," Pearl sighed.

"My point _is_ that it's possible that if they were planning to head to a Kindergarten, they might fund a new one. There were eighty-nine originally planned for Earth, so they may just make landing on an initially planned location."

Garnet's lips straightened. "If something were to happen, it would be here," she deduced. "My future vision foresaw something occur _here_ , and we're here to determine if it's happened yet."

Amethyst huffed. "And by the looks of it, it's _yet_. Nothing's here but a buncha fog and old gem junk."

"I suppose I can understand if they would want to do work here," snipped Peridot after. "The Beta Kindergarten's an embarrassment to all gems out there, and it would be easier to re-activate this than start another."

All gems aside from Peridot grew quiet as she gave her spiel on the re-activation of the Kindergarten. She must have noticed their discomfiture for she ended up clamping her lips together and mirroring their leery expressions. "Of course, that's only if that _is_ their intention here. Theoretically speaking, the fact that we've only seen pods thus far and not colonization ships is a good sign."

Her amends did little to appease the others' worries. Steven ended up walking beside the embarrassed gem, now drudging on without a word in edgewise.

Eventually the group entered the main canyon. It stretched vastly into the distance, but the walls were blanketed by the dense murk of fog. The injectors stuck and forgotten in the canyon walls from above winked balefully in the half-light at the Crystal Gems as they passed warily underneath.

Steven soon found himself experiencing the same disillusion as Amethyst. With them having been patrolling the ancient site for a rough hour and no bounty, it was beginning to feel really monotonous.

Whenever Peridot would speak up with some old Kindergarten fact, he ended up droning her out as he surveyed the dull sky. Amethyst would follow up by pointing out little landmarks, like an oddly-shaped boulder or a hole she would hang around in, and tell little tales of her time stuck here.

Steven decided he'd had enough uneventful tedium for the day.

"Garnet?" He tiredly tried. "If something's gonna happen, do you think you can maybe use your future vision to know when? Because we've been walking around for a while now and we haven't seen anything yet." Amethyst grunted with agreement.

Pearl was the first to swivel around to console the boy, but she didn't stop walking. "This isn't the first time we've had an uneventful search and end up with something by the end. If Garnet is certain something is going to happen here, then we need to trust her. Even if it means we have to be patient for a protracted amount of time. Right?"

Steven released a sigh and focused on his sandals. "Yeah. Sorry, Pearl."

"Apology accepted."

That was when he noticed Garnet. The fusion was had stopped walking, transfixed on the hazy stretch of ground stretching out before the Crystal Gems. If he remembered correctly, he thought that this was where the gems had first seen Peridot here when she was still affiliated with Yellow Diamond.

"What'cha looking at, G?" Amethyst asked after following Steven's gaze to their stagnant leader.

"Get down."

"What?" Steven tilted his head. "Why?"

Before Steven could question anything further a hand was wrapped around his middle and he was jolted off the ground and thrust behind the cracked casing of a nearby crumpled injector. Peridot and Amethyst were next, scampering in to flank Steven with equally confused looks.

Pearl followed, and lastly Garnet dropped down just as a metallic hum began to permeate throughout the ravine.

" _Uhhh. ._ . " Steven gulped. "What's that noise?"

" _Shhh_." Pearl subdued Steven by placing her index over his lips. His lips curled in his confusion as he pried Pearl's hand away from his face, climbing over to Amethyst and Peridot to peer over the dusty surface of the gem injector.

Even with the screen of fog, it was easy to spot out the silhouette making way through the deluge. It warbled quietly across the grounds, avoiding obstacles with ease before slowing into a halt. It hovered experimentally over the dull purple ground before landing gear emerged from its bottom.

Now that it was still, it was easier to make out details. It had a loud green exterior, accented with an exotic yellow. Dark green wrapped around its bottom half, and beams of light protruded from little slits near its mechanical legs.

He heard a small gasp beside him from Peridot as she frantically ducked behind the injector.

Amethyst glanced down at her shivering friend, features drawn into something like bemusement. "What? That thing got you scared, Peri?"

"You don't _understand_!" Peridot hissed, pawing at the ground before slapping her hands to her visor with dismay. "That kind of aero-vessel can only be designated for-"

"Peridots!"

Steven finished her sentence for her whilst gaping ahead at the sight before him.

A door had transpired with a cold flash of yellow, and as it angled to meet with the stone floor a familiar figure stepped out.

A Peridot, fully equipped with limb enhancers, stood distastefully on the metal door as she surveyed the environment. The first thing Steven noticed was how her gem was placed just below her throat, rather than her forehead. She lacked a visor, as well, and he found himself surprised at how peculiar Peridot would look without it.

Soon a second joined her on the device.

"Whoa, she looks different than you do!" Was all Steven had to say. This gem was a paler shade of green, and had much shorter hair, even if it still pointed into a point in front. He couldn't see where her gem was placed, but at least _she_ had a visor.

"Steven, be quiet, _please_ ," Pearl warned in a low voice as she crawled over to him and placed an arm around his shoulder.

Peridot ended up peering back over the injector after some pestering on Amethyst's behalf, watching the other Peridots began a brief examination of the ravine.

The short-haired Peridot called something back into the ship, and soon two more Peridots - limb enhancers included - clanked out onto the platform.

"What're they saying?" He whispered to Peridot, flinching away when she snapped around to stare at him. He swore he could see her shaking. "I don't know!" She hissed. "I'm as far away as you are!"

"So you can't just tell what they're saying?" Amethyst spacily asked. "I thought you had mind powers?"

" _Wh_ -" Peridot stammered for an answer. "No! You're confusing my telekinesis for telepathy!" She snapped. "I don't know what they're saying."

"And neither will the rest of us will if you three keep chatting!" Pearl warned, ultimately silencing the three with a stern glare before turning back to focus on the ship and its inhabitants. Garnet hadn't even made a move to quiet them; she seemed far too invested to notice the smallest gems bickering.

Another Peridot joined the others on the ground at last, and the platform slowly hissed up and back into its proper place, sealing shut with a mechanical _whirr_.

" _Oh my gosh_ ," Steven murmured in awe under his breath. The last to emerge was a practical carbon copy of their own Peridot. Her gem was placed in her forehead, and the only true difference was her lack of visor, revealing her suspiciously narrowed eyes in all their glory.

Peridot seemed to notice her, too, because she let out a small whimper that Steven was sure he wasn't meant to have heard.

Steven counted five altogether, and would have found it amusing if not for the extremity of their situation. _"There were five Rubies, too. Maybe it's just a gem thing. Or a coincidence."_

The Crystal Gems began to sink lower behind the injector as two of the Peridots, one with her gem on her chest and the other on her left shoulder, proceeded to walk deeper into the ravine and closer to them.

Steven could only make out pieces of what the two were saying to each other. " _. . . Earth. . . their business. . . useless."_

The Peridot with the gem in her shoulder came so close to the cylinder shielding him and his family from plain sight that he could hear her huff of disgust as she repelled from the broken machine.

She looked less like their Peridot up close: her hair seemed to have more furl to it, and her uniform was a slightly darker shade of green.

"Nothing here is worth the effort of salvaging," she ended up muttering to her accomplice. "I propose we simply terminate the immaterial devices here," she snickered, readying her limb enhancer and directing its canon at the old thing.

Steven could feel his heart jump into his throat. If she destroyed the injector, the Crystal Gems would be revealed.

Or they could even be demolished with the injector. He hadn't forgotten just how powerful limb enhancers were, especially when their user had treacherous intent.

The other came up to stand beside her, eyeing the stagnant material within the injector in dissatisfaction. "Destroying these things, however _archaic_ they may be, would require more effort on our behalf. The contents within the capsules would be easier to salvage and utilize now than requesting further material from Homeworld."

The other Peridot growled and lowered her blast canon. "Fine. Though I don't see why we were assigned to this rock in the first place. Chest-Peridot sounded like she was chastising her, but he couldn't make out anything other than a nasally and coolly irritated tone of voice.

A collective sigh of relief came from the hiding gems as they stomped away, and it wasn't until they were out of audible range that Garnet addressed them. "This," she began, "is what I foresaw. We need to determine what their purpose is here."

"How're we gonna do that?" Amethyst prompted. "They don't sound very _not smart_ , like a certain group'a red gems we all know and love."

"From what I heard, it sounded like they were gathering resources," Steven relayed.

Pearl startled with a horrified pule. "Garnet, they can't be re-activating the Kindergarten, can they?"

Garnet frowned. "There's only one way to find out. Peridot."

" _Nyuh?_ " The green gem in question snapped her head up to meet Garnet's unflinching stare. Sweat began to trickle nervously down her temple.

"We're going to need you to go in there and retrieve the information. If they have come here to restart the Kindergarten, we need to know immediately. The activation of this place could mean the end of all life on Earth."

"Aww, yeah! Peri's got a mission all to herself!"

Peridot's head swelled at Garnet's order and Amethyst's goading. " _B-But-_ " She sputtered, crouching in on herself and defiantly meeting their expectant eyes. "I can't! I can't just walk in there as if I'm part of their mission!" She gaped.

Steven sat down beside her, dark eyes round with consideration. "Why not?"

" _Because_ \- Because I'm like _this!_ " She gestured wildly to her arm.

Amethyst raised a brow. " _Green_?"

"Without my limb enhancers!" Peridot groaned, falling onto her back and staring up at Steven. "They'll know I'm not one of them the instant they lay their eyes on me! Peridots are by no means as intelligent as some other technicians, but they certainly will be able to tell something's amiss if I just stroll on in there!"

Pearl's eyes lit up. "Perhaps if we captured one of them and took her limb enhancers," she proposed, face bright with the triumph of having resolved the situation. "That way, you could wear them in and gather intel on their mission."

"Don't you think they might notice one of their team is missing?" Steven asked. "Even if they all kinda look the same. Peridot said they aren't like the Rubies, so. . they'll probably notice something."

"Steven is right." Garnet adjusted her visor as she considered his argument. "We need to be much more careful with these Peridots than we were with them."

"And it appears we've just missed our window."

Pearl's voice grabbed all of their attention, and she pointed to where the five Peridots had gathered together. A square panel glowed to life beneath their robotic feet, and within a few seconds they had been taken underground to the control rooms of the Kindergarten.

"Geez," Amethyst huffed. "They're not wasting any time with this stuff."

"Of course they wouldn't! Peridots aren't meant to waste time." Peridot told her.

"But you waste time. . . all the time."

"I'm not exactly part of Homeworld anymore. Therefore I have more time to do what I want and not what my-"

"That's enough." Peridot and Amethyst immediately withered under Garnet's stoical glare. "We should try and break into their ship to see if we can dissect anything from their control system."

They waited a few minutes to determine whether or not the coast was clear, and when no Peridots returned from the underground they all left the injector and hurried to the green ship.

They pawed the area where the doors had unsealed and dropped to the ground, but to no avail. Peridot eventually stepped back with a dramatic sigh after both physical and ferrokenetic attempts at opening the ship failed. "I should have assumed it would be controlled by limb enhancers," she growled. "It won't open unless it establishes a virtual connection with a Peridot and the data in her screen."

"So we can't just open it with our hands?" Implored Steven as he gave the green metal a pat like it would resolve their problem.

"No, we can't. We're going to need to wait for one of the other Peridots to open it herself." Peridot stormed away from the vessel, fists clenched at her side. Steven watched after her in concern.

"Well, we can't do anything right now," Pearl confessed dismally. "But we have to try again tomorrow. Who knows how long the Peridots will remain in that creepy chamber?" She glanced over to the boy watching Peridot stomp away. "And Steven can't wait it out here until tomorrow."

One final and ascetic sweep from Garnet, and she gave in to Pearl's argument. "I suppose it's worth the try tomorrow. We need to get Steven home."

The boy they spoke of was padding away from the group and over to Peridot, who had yet to unwrap her arms from her chest. She was staring at the broken remains of an injector like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

"Peridot, are you okay?"

When the gem turned to face him, he was surprised by the sincerity in her frown. Shame made her cheeks flush before she twisted away with a loud sigh. "Fine."

Steven stepped closer until he was directly in front of her and wrapping a hand around her small shoulder. "I'm not buying that. Try again?"

Peridot's lips curled into a snarl, but any anger she felt disintegrated the moment she saw the heartfelt care written all over the boy's face. "It's just that if I still had my limb enhancers, we wouldn't need to have taken such drastic measures to infiltrate their things," she spat sorrowfully, self-consciously tucking her arms closer to her chest. "But no, they were discarded. I wonder _whoever_ by."

"Hey, it's okay!" Steven reached out and grabbed for Peridot's hands, pulling them into his own with a sympathetic smile. "It's not the first time we've ever encountered something that doesn't take a couple extra steps to cross over! It's not your fault."

Peridot opened her mouth to speak but a whistle from Amethyst made her lose track of thought. "C'mon, you guys, we're headin' back. Garnet's saying we'll have better luck next time anyway!"

"Come on, Peridot," Steven prompted, grabbing onto Peridot's flimsy hand and leading her back in the direction of the warp pad. "Like Garnet said, there's always next time!"

* * *

When Peridot marched into the barn, Lapis could immediately tell something was awry.

The spontaneity was gone from the small gem's gait, as was the normal excitement she showed whenever she returned home.

Referring to the barn as home, _their_ home, was still a recent concept to Lapis. Yet thinking of it like that always left such a pleasant warm feeling within her form.

A feeling that was regurgitating and quickly mutating into worry as Peridot quietly closed the barn door behind her, eyes dull and distracted by something Lapis couldn't see.

"Hey Peridot," the blue gem called down from the loft, preparing to summon her wings to drop down to the barn floor below. "How was the mission?"

Her voice seemed to prove to be enough to punch Peridot out of her doltish episode, because she twisted her head to meet Lapis' eyes from down below. "It was. . . not so great." the gem admitted as she finished locking the barn doors and aimlessly wandered into the barn.

Lapis watched her barn mate pause in the middle of her ambling, spot something out and walk over to it.

"Don't explain it all at once," the slender gem remarked as she flew down to ground level to see Peridot climbing onto the hood of the tractor.

Seeing Peridot so despondent, so helpless, rung something powerful within Lapis that threatened to make her feel as blue as her complexion. She drifted over from their previous spot and clambered atop the tractor with Peridot, settling down on the cushioned seat. "Something went wrong?"

"Everything went wrong," Peridot affirmed, voice hitching with contained agitation as she pressed a hand agonizingly to her gem.

A new sense of dread overcame Lapis as unpleasant thoughts jeopardized her mind. "Is Steven okay?"

" _Wh-_ -" Peridot's face tightened with confusion before registering where Lapis was coming from. "Oh! Steven's fine. As are the Gems," she clarified guiltily.

"Then. . . " Lapis studied Peridot's face. Normally she could recognize the majority of the zany and occasionally maniacal expressions she would pull on a daily basis. But the crestfallen and defeated look on her face now was something she hadn't seen in a long time, not since they had first begun living together.

It seemed like such a lifetime ago; she couldn't imagine life at the barn without boisterous snickering as a background noise at almost all hours of the day.

"Are you okay?"

The green gem made a weak high-pitched noise that sounded like it was from incredulity. "No! I was totally useless to them!"

Lapis could feel her lips dip downwards as she pictured what kind of scenario would provoke such a mood out of Peridot. Sure, she was rather temperamental and determined to prove herself more times than she could count, though it was exceptionally hard to put her down like this.

"A ship landed at the Kindergarten while we were investigating for signs of intrusion," Peridot began, terse. "They were Peridots."

"Oh?"

"They spoke about reusing the old gem creation materials there, and. . . I'm assuming they meant to salvage it for reinstating the Prime Kindergarten."

"Why are you so bummed out over it?" Lapis queried, leaning closer to Peridot over the driver's wheel of the human machine.

"Because I couldn't do anything, I just watched them mill around like a clod! I should have been able to do _something._ "

"Like what?"

"Like _anything_ , Lapis! I couldn't just walk over there and go, ' _hey, fellow Peridots, state your purpose for choosing this singular planet to infiltrate,_ ' like Garnet suggested I do," she shrilled. Suddenly the zeal was gone from her voice, replaced by something smaller and far too dismal for Lapis' liking. " _I'm_ - _gruhh_ , I don't have my limb enhancers anymore after the Crystal Gems disposed of them. If I'd just had them. . ."

"You think it might have helped?" Lapis guessed. Memories of seeing Peridot still trudging about within the giant metal enhancements brought back particularly unwelcome thoughts, so she willed them away by investing herself in the matter at hand.

"I _know_ it would have," Peridot griped bitterly. "My metal powers are only _so_ honed. If something bad really is going to happen on Earth, I'd be thinking like a real clod if I thought I could do anything proficient without them."

The ocean gem looked Peridot over behind worried blue eyes. She was staring down at her hands, rubbing her fingers in what could only have been stilted loathing. "Well," the blue gem sighed, reaching over to take a hand in her own. "I think you make do just fine without them."

Peridot stared down at the hand lapsing around her own before intertwining their fingers as colour rose to her face. "Thanks, Laz," she murmured warmly, and a little dumbfoundedly. Then she was ripped out of the stupor with a vicious shake of her head. "But you and I both saw just how ' _helpful'_ I was on our last mission together. All I could do was hit those dumb things with a metal stick!"

"It distracted them so Pearl and I could attack," Lapis intervened, hoping to dampen Peridot's credibility in her rant of self-deprecation. It didn't seem to work, because Peridot's hand slipped out of Lapis' as she stuck it flusteredly under her visor. "You didn't need your limb enhancers to do that."

"And what if someone gets hurt?" Peridot sharply retorted. "What if _you_ get hurt?" She twisted her head around to bore into Lapis, and the ocean gem was shocked to see a small bead of moisture dribbling down her green cheeks. Was she crying? "I wouldn't be able to do anything other than twirl around some fancy metal _stick_. What if Steven- what if _you **-**_ "

Peridot was silenced by two lean arms wrapping around her, followed by wholehearted words of consolation. "Nothing can get me," Lapis promised as she pressed her chin over Peridot's shoulder. "And for Steven, we'll work together to protect him. You'll never have to fight alone so long as I'm here. Okay?"

She could feel Peridot's chest balloon as she sharply inhaled, and for an instant Lapis feared that her fondness would be rejected. But she felt hands arms wrap around her neck and the consternation distilled. "Wow, thanks," she murmured into Lapis' hair.

"Now come on, I think Veggie Head wants your attention."

" _My_ attention?"

"Yes, _yours_. And we can go watch Camp Pining Hearts with him, too."

That seemed to capture the interest of Peridot. " _Yes_!"

Lapis let Peridot go and waited for her to grab onto Veggie Head, who had been watching her with wide, expectant eyes before grabbing her and flying swiftly up onto the truckbed to their T.V..

A Camp Pining Hearts VHS was popped in, specifically the tape that played the second season that Lapis knew Peridot adored so much. She could just begun to comprehend why: it involved the best Percy character arc.

She couldn't find it in her to become enraptured by the show like before. Her eyes kept stealing glances to Peridot, and them to the distant silhouette of the giant statue where she knew Steven and the Crystal Gems lived. She would need to visit it soon.

Lapis had a recovery mission to begin, after all.

* * *

 **MMMMM, so many Peridots. It makes our Peridot stress out. I had a dream where Peridot got cloned and Lapis was just trying to deal with having exactly fourteen Peridots in the barn. And she couldn't even tell which one was the original. It was mayhem.**

 **And also, I wonder, what could Lapis' mission possibly be? Hmmm.**

 **Seeya next chapter! Thanks so much for reading thus far! It really makes me happy knowing people are enjoying the story!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Welcome back to Hope of Morning! I had a lotta fun with this chapter - I like writing about the ocean. And I've been waiting to write this since I even thought this story up, so I kinda made it all in one day! I was really pumped.**

 **Also, this marks the three-week anniversary of this fic being put on the site! Woop! I'm surprised I've got ten chapters and 40K words so far!**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar!**

* * *

Learning that Steven was absent from the Temple had been a discouraging discovery.

Lapis was hoping he would be the one to help her scavenger for the lost set she was looking for. Instead, the boy was out with his human friend, Garnet had said. She had been the gem to let her inside.

The ocean gem had gotten over the fact that, despite her own personal aversion to fusion, Garnet continued to stay together. How she managed such a feat, Lapis was both drawn to and horrified by the notion. Steven had been the one to console her that Garnet was fused with love, with the desire to stay together, to be around one another on purpose.

How could fusion be such a vast concept, that two polar opposites could exist under the same name? One loving, and one. . .

"She should be out soon," Garnet deduced as she readjusted the visor over her face. "Amethyst is currently fighting to find the Temple entrance through her room."

"Roger." Lapis tucked her arms in to her thin chest, drumming her fingers along her lower bicep in a technique she'd seen Peridot do countless times whenever she got impatient at home.

Through the watchful corners of her eyes, she could see Garnet turn away from the closed Temple door and turn her eyeless stare onto Lapis. On another day the blue gem would have considered her unbroken stare as guarded or impassive, but today, it seemed to radiate warm patience.

"What made you want to retrieve her limb enhancers?" She asked.

Lapis looked up from her crossed forearms, stopping her thrumming fingers to scrutinize Garnet. _"How did she know?"_ She was quiet in her befuddlement until she remembered that Garnet was also a Sapphire. _"Future vision, of course."_

She also missed the small knowing smirk twitching on the fusion's face.

"She seemed so upset about them when she came back to the barn last night," she nonchalantly offered, putting in a small shrug for emphasis on her ' _apathy_ '. "I thought it-"

The whooshing of the Temple door drifting open in a short burst of light cut her off. An undersized Amethyst stepped out, carrying in her arms a large pan spotted with brown grime. It wasn't until she looked up that she saw Lapis and Garnet boring down on her.

"Oh. 'Sup," the purple gem greeted lazily before ambling into the kitchen behind the counter island.

Garnet's shoulders lost some of their composure as the fusion moved across the house to loom behind the purple gem who was now moseying through the contents of Steven's fridge, pan in hand. "Amethyst, I've got a quick job for you."

Lapis could see Amethyst physically chafe at that. "What is it?" She sighed in over-exasperated cheerlessness. "'Cuz you know I'm not gonna do the chores 'round here. Not after _last_ time."

"None of us have forgotten the last time," Garnet remarked coolly. "I'm going to send you with Lapis to retrieve something."

Lapis, from behind Garnet, met Amethyst's confused violet eyes and gave a half-hearted thumbs-up. " _All right_ ," complied the small gem as she placed her dirty pan on the countertop. "Just don't let Steven use that. He might die or something."

"Noted. Lapis is waiting."

Truthfully, the task at hand wasn't urgent, so Lapis wasn't really _waiting_. More or less, just lingering. Lapis had persuaded Peridot to perform a number of technology-related things that day - not that Lapis understood most of them. She'd been taught how to disassemble their tractor, and that about piqued the blue gem's level of expertise. But she knew that keeping Peridot busy would keep her sorrow from yesterday at bay.

And, it would give her time to go out and search.

It wouldn't be surprising if by the time she returned, limb enhancers in hand, Peridot was still tinkering away at her barn security drones.

"So, what're we lookin' for?" Amethyst probed as she hopped in beside Lapis, stretching her arms over her head and giving the blue gem a sideways glance. "More little mystery things that give us headaches? Another crash site? A will to-"

"Peridot's limb enhancers. Garnet said you know where they might be."

Amethyst stopped just as her foot came to hover over the shining surface of the warp pad. Her eyes sought out Lapis, and fixed her with a diffident glance. "Yeah, I know where those are," she mumbled, pensive. "Why're yo- _ohoho!_ " The shorter gem's eyes lit up with realization as she threw herself wildly onto the teleportation device. "I know what _you're_ up to!"

Lapis' lips tightened uncertainly. "What I'm up to?"

" _Duh_! You're gonna get Peri's limb thingies! Aww, that's so _sweet_ of you," the purple gem swooned, feigning theatrical disbelief as she draped an arm playfully over her eyes.

At a loss for words, all Lapis could do was watch Amethyst make her melodramatic movements with a look of blank misunderstanding. "Sweet of me?" She queried dryly. "What does that-"

"It means it's you're doin' something _nice_ for her," Amethyst explained breathlessly while she dramatically brushed an invisible tear from her eye. "You're just like Peridot when she was still a total nerd. And she's _still_ a nerd, just cooler."

"What does being a nerd mean anyway?"

The purple gem ignored her question as crouched down and patted the place beside her on the warp pad to coax Lapis on.

"Unimportant! Now c'mon, those limb enhancers ain't gonna find themselves!"

* * *

"This is where we ditched 'em."

"The Galaxy Warp?"

Lapis stared at the sharp spires that reached up to the dusty blue sky with heavy reluctance. Then she glanced around her to see endless ocean on all sides. Of all the places on this planet to dispose of limb enhancers, why did it have to be this Gemforsaken place?

"Yup. This is where we caught her!" Amethyst tramped off of the warp pad and moved across the sun-baked surface of the foundation. "I think I threw 'em over the edge by that warp pad there. The one with the weird sticker of a crying piece of toast."

Lapis hesitantly followed Amethyst's outstretched arm until she saw the device she was talking about. She meandered over and gave the small warp pad a disinclined once-over. "What's the sticker mean?"

"Means it's offline. Deactivated. Dead. Whatever word you wanna use." Amethyst came up beside her, squinting at the bizarre sticker Steven had placed on the warp.

Lapis made a noncommittal noise, brushing off the curious crying icon and skirting around the abandoned device. "You said you threw them over? Over the edge?" She asked for clarification, giving the water below a rather disconsolate look.

Amethyst sucked guiltily at her teeth. "Yeah, 'cuz we didn't ever think we'd need them. Same deal for Peridot. I just kinda. . . " She made a sweeping movement with her arms. "Chucked 'em down there. On accident."

"On accident?" Lapis echoed, narrowed eyes portraying her disbelief.

"I did say _oops_. Sarcastically."

The taller gem hummed caustically, staring down at the waves crashing against the rims of the Galaxy Warp, whispering anxiously in wait for the ocean gem to be dropped into its dark, wet depths.

"Okay," Lapis sighed, placing her hands on her hips before glancing at the casual purple gem. "Thanks for showing me."

"Yeah, yeah," preened Amethyst, flapping her hand over her chest in a very Pearl-esque fashion. "No sweat. If it's gonna- whoa!"

Before the gem could even finish Lapis had taken a broad stride over the edge of the platform in a quick surge of courage. Earth's gravitational pull sucked her down, billowing out her blue dress as wind rode up her legs. It was hard to remain composed as she felt cold water crash around her ankles and subsequently pull the rest of her down beneath the surface.

She waited, expecting to feel the abhorrent sensation of watery chains locking around her wrists and the achingly chaotic feelings that came with being trapped underwater.

Lapis opened her eyes only to register that she _wasn't_ trapped.

Sheer cliffs of rock rose up around her, harboring small ocean life that flitted curiously in and out of their festive reefs to view the new being currently drifting through their midst. Sand eventually scrunched between her bare feet, and she blinked down at the clouding ocean floor.

Gone was the mottled green realm where she suffered for so long: all that was around her was pure, natural ocean. Her element and thereby her domain.

She wasn't trapped; it had been over for a long time now. She was here for Peridot, not to reminisce over her past.

The revelation lassoed in a new bout of determination as Lapis employed her powers and had them assist her in surveying the perimeter. The current in this section of the waters was remarkably soft, presumably weakened by the shelves of rocky coral jutting out from the ocean floor to blockade the area. If Peridot's limb enhancers had fallen here, they can't have gone far if the rhythm of the waters had been the same at her time of capture.

Pressurized water brushed away excess scraps of dead coral and underwater foliage, revealing the grainy sand to light, however faded, for the first time in could have been many, many years. Lapis pushed her way through a thriving sponge colony, delicately pawing her way as to not disturb the marine beings dwelling there.

Even if the ocean had caused her so much grief in the past, she didn't think it would be incredibly fair to wreak on its inhabitants the same sentiment.

The next stretch of ocean was heavily adorned with beds upon beds of reef. Tiny fish darted from one colourful shelf to another, some even daring to dart close enough for Lapis to make out the light shimmering against their individual scales.

The colony was so rich and diverse in colour that it would take quite the effort to hunt the enhancers down simply by sight. Lapis withheld a groan at considering the idea of personally shifting through the ocean detritus. She would never be home before nightfall, which had been the plan all along.

Why did they have to ditch her enhancers, anyway? Couldn't Pearl have used them for something? Modified them to fit Crystal Gem standards, whatever _that_ meant?

While Lapis was brooding a slim royal blue-and-black fish flecked with gold freckles had rode right up in front of her, swimming so close that Lapis had to cross her eyes to make it out clearly.

"I don't suppose you know where Peridot's things might be," she snorted mockingly. Its fins swiveled as the slender fish turned away from her. She swore she could see its dark pupil fixated on her before it darted away at breakneck speed into the din of the coral reefs.

Before she could decide why she found herself rocketing after the fish. Her skirt pinned to her legs as she swooped beneath a green rock arch, tearing through a fluttering meadow of sea lettuce. She chased it through an amalgam of algae before it halted. Lapis slammed to a stop, her hair forming a wispy halo around her face and her skirt swelling at the abrupt lack of locomotion.

The blue fish spun around to fix Lapis with a blank, beady brown stare, before it began to slowly swim deeper into what Lapis realized must have been an underwater cavern.

The animosity the lair diffused didn't go unnoticed. Even if water was her specialty, navigating through dark underwater corridors was especially annoying. Considering the only source of light she could offer was on her back. Load of good that would do her down here.

Lapis steeled herself and dove deeper into the open mouth until all light was consumed by dark blackness. Panic began to flutter like a caged bird in the willowy gem's chest as she tried to stand but found her feet churning in water rather than solid rock.

In the middle of her mentally cursing the fish for leading her on into this creepy place, something flashed in her peripheral vision.

Sure enough, when Lapis forced her head in the gleam's direction, she could make out something reflecting against an unseen light source further into the cavern. Upon closer inspection she realized with a relieved grin that it was a disheveled set of limb enhancers. Even the small magnetic fingers that came with it were piled atop them.

She zipped over to the set and ran a finger over the electric green surface of the devices. It was shocking how they lacked layers of grime or algae from being underwater so long, in so dark and dank at place at that.

As she lifted up one of the metal legs, she contemplated its weight before something awful struck her.

What was lighting up the cavern?

The water-muffled sound of rocks grinding made Lapis to swivel around. She caught the flash of luminescent scales, quivering only an arm's length away from her in the murk. She stifled a gasp as she raised her eyes up for a better look.

A colossal eel's face glared down at her with glowing blue eyes that screamed malice. A gem was stuck just below its bulbous jawline, sickly glittering in the light emitting from its own skin. Like a bird ruffles its feathers its scales convulsed, pulsing sharp blue light throughout its body.

Lapis decided to take that as a sign to get out of there.

Slowly, Lapis moved her wrists to gather the limb enhancers into a cluster of bubbles. But as soon as they began to lift from their throne the eel let out a gurgling shriek before nosediving towards Lapis.

The ocean gem darted out of the way, dress swaying elegantly around her as she coldly regarded the monster. It had coiled itself to cover the entrance where she had come in.

 _"I'm trapped,"_ came the alarming thought, dawning upon her like frost that engulfed her limbs and made her freeze in place. _"The only way to get out's through there_." Her eyes snapped around the cavern, but she didn't get long because the eel's massive head crashed into the wall beside her, making the cavern tremble with the silent threat of a collapse.

Thinking about being stuck down here, forever trapped beneath the stones, awoke something cold and aggressive inside of Lapis. She shot away from the dazed sea monster, mustering strength and willing the water ripple and dance around her until it was a dense whirlwind that deflected any attacks the eel tried.

Her hands thrilled with energy as she sent a volley of pressurized water missiles into the beast's glinting eyes, taking immense satisfaction when it bellowed its dismay at being blinded. The cavern around them, however, didn't share Lapis' fulfillment. The walls gave a ill-boding groan as half-formed stalagmites began to break from the roof and drop down onto the fighting gems below.

Lapis darted downwards, narrowly avoiding being clocked in the head by sinking rock. She ripped down through the shifting current towards the limb enhancers, hoping to snatch them and make a wild swim for it, but she felt her hand touch the sleek scales of the monster instead.

It released another enraged holler before smacking its body roughly against Lapis, sending the blue gem spiraling into a wall. A cracking sound filled her ears, followed by smaller, weaker crackling. She flinched when a shock of pain rippled through her back, and inwardly prayed to anyone and anything that her gem wasn't cracked.

The impact she made had sent a channel of cracks up the cliff wall. She watched in horror as the fissures reached hungrily up to the ceiling, releasing a barrage of sharp stones and sending them careening down onto the large eel.

A monstrous scream, an explosion, and then darkness swallowed the crumbling cavern, leaving Lapis scrambling in the dark to catch the poofed gem.

When the ovular gem fell into her hands, she quickly surrounded it in a bubble. Without thought she tapped the surface of the bubble and was shocked to see it rise before quickly dissipating to _wherever_ bubbled gems went. Not a moment later did the last of the cavern begin to cave in, crunching everything under the intense weight of the falling rocks.

Lapis hurried over to grab Peridot's limb enhancers and made haste out of the cave, escaping mere seconds before the entire thing smashed in on itself.

She sped through the waters, up towards the surface where she could see the sunlight waltzing on the seafoam. She shot upwards, followed by a floating bubble of water that held the enhancers inside, and extended her wings to soar up into a cloudless sky. She kept the enhancers within the safety of her water plume; it was a lot easier than trying to carry each and every little piece of the set in her arms.

Judging by the sun's position in the sky, it was a little past noon. Lapis could be back at the barn by early afternoon! With a victorious excitement that buzzed from the tips of her wings to the very heart of her gem, Lapis flew quickly back to give her findings back to their proper wearer.

The excitement made the journey back more lethargic, like it was purposefully stretched out. It was enough to make the water gem think she'd never reach the barn. But when Lapis could make out the massive Temple fusion in the distance, she slowed down with a sigh of relief.

The gem dove down and soared over the sands of Beach City's outskirts, stopping when she spotted a familiar star-wearing boy next to a less familiar girl.

"Steven!" Lapis gladly called out, dropping to the sands with a small huff. The boy looked up from the small construction he had been making with the human girl and quickly forgot it, stamping through the sand to greet the tired Lapis.

"Lapis! Hi!" He gasped as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Oh! Oh! Connie, come meet Lapis!"

The dark-skinned girl hovered uncertainly near the sand castle the two had been working on, eyeing Lapis with what the gem thought was suspicion. "I think we've met before, Steven," she softly said as she stepped towards them.

"Oh." Steven's face fell at the reminder of the _last_ time Connie and Lapis had seen each other. "But meet again! She's totally good now!"

"But. . . what's that huge thing of water doing beside her?"

"Huh?"

Steven pried himself away from Lapis, and she sheepishly folded her arms as she turned back to see the bubble of water containing the limb enhancers looming curiously over her shoulder.

"Oh my gosh!" Steven beamed, gripping with iron fists onto the edge of Lapis' skirt and tugging energetically like she didn't notice the things floating around in _her_ bubble. "Those are Peridot's limb enhancers!"

Connie floundered in beside Steven, gazing at the balloon of water in now undisguised wonder. "Limb enhancers?"

"I-I wanted to find them," Lapis spoke, surprised by the stammer in her voice. She had planned how she would present the enhancers to Peridot, but not anyone else. She didn't mind sharing her findings with Steven, though; maybe he could come to present them to her. "For Peridot. She seemed really upset. . ."

" _Aaaa_ , this is great!" The boy hollered, throwing up his hands and staring at the floating limb enhancers. A shadow of thought passed across his face as his eyes skimmed over to the beach house on the hill. "Hold on! _Hold on_! I think - I think I have her foot!"

"What?" Lapis turned around to view the scattered limbs before she noticed how one of the legs was missing its foot attachment. "Oh. I couldn't see that in the dark."

"It's okay! I have it in a place. . . somewhere! I'll be right back!" Steven sprinted away, leaving a cloud of flying sand in his wake. As well as Connie and Lapis staring in bafflement after him.

Lapis turned to the small human, unable to pinpoint exactly where she had seen the face before. The memories were muddled and almost unrecognizable, but she could remember. . .

"Oh. . . Sorry, about what happened. With the ocean."

Connie's, Lapis remembered Steven calling her that, head snapped up and she met with Lapis' unreadable eyes. "It's okay," the human murmured and rubbed her hand through her dark hair thoughtfully. "The ocean came back! And Steven's talked about you a _lot_ since you were freed, too." She phrased the end of her comment like it was a question. "I'm glad things are going okay for you now!"

Lapis regarded Connie quietly, brows quirking with inquiry. She couldn't begin to make amends for what she did when her gem was cracked. And with that thought, another alarming one came to mind.

"What's wrong?" Connie asked upon noticing Lapis' immediate discomfort.

She swiftly reached for her back, and reprieve swamped over her when she didn't feel a crack in her gem. "Nothing," she sighed, her terror abated. "I just thought-"

"I've got the _foot!_ "

Steven raced up between Connie and Lapis, dusted with sand but holding up a metallic green foot in his chubby hands. "Can I carry it to the barn? _Please_?" He pleaded, grinning up at Lapis as he hugged the foot to the star on his chest. "I really wanna see Peridot! She'll be so happy!"

Lapis chuckled and happily pressed her hand through the boy's curly head of hair. "Why not?"

" _Woo-hoo_!" Steven bolted over to Connie. "C'mon! We can take the warp from the house!" Lapis wasn't sure how she felt about this stranger seeing their home, but if Steven was okay with it, then she guessed she could be, too.

"Wait a second, Steven." Lapis stopped them, glanced at the ocean waves rolling leisurely onto the beach, and swapped her eyes back onto the children. Her eyes were playful. "I think I have a better idea."

* * *

"Now, with how I just recalibrated them. . . they should be able to do . . _this_!"

Peridot flew her hands back, watching with anticipation as the drone between her legs did. . . absolutely nothing.

" _Grahh_! For the love of clod!" The small gem shouted, having run dry of options on how to further revise the issues plaguing her security drones. She resorted to kicking the dumb robot off of the barn loft where she'd been working, watching hostile smugness as it splintered on the barn floor below. Right next to the first one she had tried readjusting.

It didn't influence her anymore than the random blue bubble that had appeared next to the lime one she had sent here after her triumph in the beta Kindergarten with Steven.

Seeing them both scattered across the worn floorboards brought back her sense of impotence. "I can't even fix a stupid drone," she grunted, staring at the remote control that had previously controlled the drones. It wasn't like they were useless! They had worked plenty of times before, but only seemed to come out of hiding whenever Lapis was around.

Speaking of her barn mate, she had been absent for the whole day now. The blue gem had taken off just before the sun had lifted into the sky to begin its daily cycle, and had yet to show a sign of return. Peridot's lips tightened anxiously. Usually whenever Lapis was gone for longer than a handful of hours, she would tell Peridot where she was going, especially now that the two were much closer.

Had she frightened Lapis off last night? Had she finally decided that the debilitated Peridot was no longer worth the close companionship of? Had she-

"Peridot!"

If Peridot had a heart, it would have jumped into her throat and throbbed at how quickly her mood alleviated and her head got lighter. "Lapis!" She squeaked, scrambling across the loft and diving down the wooden ladder. She tripped over a part that had disassembled from the main body of a drone, falling flat on her face with a curse.

"I'm coming!"The green gem scurried to the barn doors, taking a final glance at the mess of scraps and robot parts she'd left strewn across the lower level. "Uh, disregard the collateral mess in there," she chuckled nervously as she turned to where she thought Lapis was. "I was only-"

" _Ta-da!_ "

Peridot was interrupted when Steven and a human girl run up to her. The boy thrust out his arms and showed the object in his arms to the gem with a huge smile. "Surprise! You left it in the bathroom when we all came over to the barn for the drill!"

Her eyes stretched behind her visor as she fumbled for her old foot, long since disconnected from its original enhancer. "What a great souvenir of that other time you assaulted me," she echoed, remembering uttering the same words when Steven came to her in the bathroom after her initial release. Steven laughed and handed her the foot.

She ran her fingers across its smooth surface. Already she could feel the sorrow for the rest of her enhancers distend within her, and if she could shape-shift her appearance she was sure it would be subconsciously inflating. "Thank you," she murmured. "But- I can't do anything with it like this. I can't even employ it for its intended purpose without the rest. . . "

"And you've got it all right here."

Lapis' smooth voice resonated from behind Peridot, and the small gem twirled around before she was benumbed with astonishment.

Gathered in Lapis' arms, a set of dripping limb enhancers were bundled together, with the taller gem fumbling to keep the fingers from dropping to the earth below. "Surprise," the blue gem tried with a doting, yet unsure, smile.

Those couldn't be. . .

"My limb enhancers?"

Peridot closed in the distance between her and Lapis until there was only an inch separating them from one another. She reached out her hand and placed it dumbly over the metal enhancer, like if she touched it it would vanish like the illusion this _had_ to be.

Lapis laughed above her and crouched to place the enhancers on the grass. "Yeah. I went to the place where they said they got rid of them and fought a monster and-"

Lapis' words were brief because Peridot had flung herself around her middle. Shakes reverberated through the green gem's form as her fists clenched with the raw feelings that were just tearing away at her form like they had all the right in the galaxy.

Peridot faltered slightly when she felt soft hands gently pry her away from Lapis' skirt, looking up with damp eyes only to see the gem crouch down and return the embrace. "I know how much they meant to you after yesterday," the blue gem murmured as Peridot dumbfoundedly rested her head in the lithe crook of her shoulder. She was frantically telling herself over and over that she shouldn't be shaking and she definitely, _definitely_. . .

Lapis stiffened within her grasp. "Oh my stars, Peridot, are you crying?"

"No!" Sputtered Peridot, burrowing her visor deeper into Lapis' shoulder to hide her face but ultimately ended up spotting her visor with more of the building tears. "It's the rain!"

"But it's not raining?"

The small gem held on to Lapis for a while longer before finally pulling herself away, blinking away the stray moisture gathered in her eyes as she stared up at Lapis. "Wow, thanks," she whispered happily, softly smiling before her face broke out into one of pure ecstasy as she spun away and ran over to the limb enhancers scattered across the grass.

"Do you know what this means!" She squealed, holding up one of her arm enhancements and offering the others a winning smirk as she held it high above her head.

"You're gonna be taller?" Connie and Steven guessed together.

"No!" Peridot snapped, before realizing her error. "Well, _yes_ , but this also means. . .

Her head shot up. "Steven! The Peridot ship! I can go in like Garnet suggested! I can retrieve the information!"

* * *

 **I can't believe Dory made a cameo in this thing. Same with a corrupted eel version of Tamatoa from Moana. Peridot's limb enhancers count as shiny things, right? I basically made those the hook here, hAA. Love me some homage to other things.**

 **This is my favourite chapter so far - just because I got to do some extra things involving Lapis and Peridot. But, hey, I wonder what it means now that Peridot has the enhancers back?**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar.**

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"Really, Garnet, I don't see why we need to come all the way to the barn for this?"

"Bear with me. There's something here that all of us will want to see."

What Garnet could have possibly meant by that was beyond Pearl at that point. It had taken some persuasion, straightforward from Garnet and raucous from Amethyst, to get the her to even accompany them on an impromptu visit to the barn.

She hadn't been able to get _anything_ out of either of them. Garnet couldn't have been more vague, but Amethyst seemed particularly keen to go on this venture.

 _"Whatever it is. . . "_ She internally grieved. _"Let's hope it's over with quickly. We really should be going back to the Kindergarten soon to check on. . ._ "

A lime green laser suddenly shot out through the open barn doors, yet what had caused it remained hidden. It zipped between Pearl and Amethyst, making each jump back in shock.

The stouter gem let out a guffaw as she whirled to the barn. "Ha! Now we're _talkin_ ' _!_ C'mon, P!"

Pearl fluttered behind, clutching the thin fabric of her tunic as she scrambled after the now rushing Quartz. "Amethyst, hold on just a moment!" She sputtered as she skidded to a halt at the door to the barn, gripping Amethyst's shoulder imploringly. "You don't know _whaaa_ -"

When the tall gem lifted her eyes from the mane of lilac hair she was greeted with an appropriately startling sight.

Steven and Connie were watching from the safety of the second floor of the barn, heads between the wooden guard rails as they watched the clattering rage on below. Lapis stood to the side of the barn doors, hardly giving the newly arrived Crystal Gems more than a blink of acknowledgment as she watched Peridot clang around in. . .

"Her limb enhancers?" Pearl gasped.

Clanging around was a _generous_ word to explain exactly what Peridot was going right then. She was hobbling slightly, like she was still trying to become used to her shifted centre of gravity. Her arms spun in arcs around her as her magnetic yellow fingers did their best not to short out from the lack of control.

She unfortunately hadn't noticed the others yet in her glee to be stomping around in her old beloved enhancers once more.

" _Ohoho_ , yeah!" Amethyst bounded forward, scramming to a stop just before one of the large robotic feet kicked her square in the nose. "Wassup, P-dot! Lookin' tall up there!"

A gasp ripped from Peridot's lips as she spun around, narrowly ramming another leg enhancer into the short Quartz as she fumbled for footing. "Amethyst! Pearl! Garnet!" She yipped as she found balance, staring at the three gathered Gems in surprise before it morphed into giddy confidence. "Look! Look what I've got back!"

"Your old limb enhancers," Garnet said knowingly.

"My _restructured_ limb enhancers!" She threw her arms up, before catching herself as her body began to dip backwards from the sudden shift of weight. Her fingers rotated and swiveled on the magnetized docks of her arms, before opening up into a familiar transparent screen. "Revitalized with new commodities! Such as!"

She drummed her fingers along the screen, and it glittered before a gentle whirring noise filled the air. When Pearl looked up, she was suddenly surrounded by five green security drones, all aiming their blank nozzles toward her. "Remote controlled security drones!"

"But-" Pearl brought her arms up over her head to cover from fire she knew she wouldn't receiving. "How on _Earth_ did you get them back?" She squawked, strolling out of the drones' vicinity and up to Peridot. Admittedly, it was strange not having to look so far down to meet her eyes. "Especially after we, _err._ . . "

"Lapis found them!"

Pearl's eyes moved around the barn until she found the blue gem, whose eyes gingerly darted away to focus on the exultant green gem when she tried searching them. "I went underwater and found them in a cave," she gave simply. "It wasn't a big deal."

"Wasn't a big deal!?" Steven hollered from the loft, nearly tipping over the edge before Connie firmly gripped the rim of his red shirt. "You fought a big monster eel! And saw a lot of fish, and escaped a crashing cave _and_ -"

"Was amazing!" Peridot finished, striding up to Lapis and throwing an arm merrily over her shoulder, her beaming grin saying everything that she couldn't. "She did it on her own accord! I- Frankly, I'm still shocked she went through all the trouble to retrieve them for me!" Her eyes fell half-lidded as she put on a smirk. "Then again, I _am_ your great and lovable bar-"

"Barn mate who was just crying on the floor thirty minutes before the others came about this," Lapis commented, a faintly smug quirk to her brow whilst silencing Peridot by slapping a hand over her mouth. Connie and Steven giggled from upstairs.

The green gem sputtered and withdrew, cheeks boiling blue as she stepped away. "Irrelevant!" She shrilled. "In my _defen_ se, it was a revolutionary act of kindness I hadn't been expecting at the time." Her words drew into mumbles by the time she was done defending herself.

"Ah, geez, Peri got all teared up about getting her things back." Amethyst jaunted over to Peridot and experimentally patted the large sleek foot. "Kinda surprised they're still working. I mean, they've been in the water for like, what, a year now? Two?"

"Homeworld makes its technologies immune to elemental phenomenon now!" Peridot exclaimed righteously. "Even if they'd been left to brave other earthly elements, they'd be left untouched by weathering, erosion, anything of the sort."

Amethyst's eyes squinted with what Pearl knew was confusion from an overload of terms she didn't care to comprehend, but the small purple gem clapped the leg again regardless. "Well, like I said, lookin' taller. Guess you ain't part of the Shorty Squad no more!" She lifted a hand to her mouth, "oh _Connie. . .!_ "

The green gem's eyes blew wide with astonishment. " _Wh_ \- _I_ \- No, I just,-" She shot out her arms, helplessly staring at how she towered over the Quartz. "No, I can still be a member! Look! If I just-" She began to make a gesture like she was about to uncertainly detach one of her robotic arms.

Amethyst blew up in a fit of laughter as she leaned against a wooden shaft. "I'm just playin', Peridot! You can be an honorary member, even when you're tanking around in _those_ things." She motioned to her enhancers with an arid chuckle.

"That's all very well," Pearl intervened as she paced up to relative eye-level with Peridot. "And I commend you on the return of your enhancers; Lapis, as well, for finding them! But, what does this mean?"

Garnet fell in beside the blue-and-white gem, placing a steady gem-palmed hand over her sleeveless shoulder. "I think we all know what this means," the fusion revealed, earning a holler from Amethyst and an excited, indescribable noise from Peridot.

Pearl's eyes narrowed as she swapped her gaze from Garnet's unyielding visors to Peridot's cantankerous moving about, back and forth, before it clicked.

"Oh my stars."

* * *

"Oh my stars _, oh my stars,_ what if this doesn't _work_?"

Peridot and the rest of the Crystal Gems were tucked away in a remote valley of the Kindergarten, preparing to send the newly suited Peridot into the fray to retrieve the information they needed.

Of course, that was if Peridot would stop flustering.

"Calm down, Peridot, you're gonna do just fine!" Steven consoled, walking up to the shuddering gem and wrapping his warm arms around the cool metal of her foot. "Just play it cool and stuff and you'll blend right in!"

"But what if I get found out?" She hissed, crouching down and grasping Steven's shoulders tightly. "They'll report me for sure! Who knows! Maybe they'll immediately recognize that I'm 2F5L Cut-5XG and shatter me instantly after what I did to Yellow Diamond! The faulty possibilities are infinite! What if-"

"Peridot."

" _Nyegh?_ "

Garnet guided the nerve-ridden gem up and rested a hand securely on the slim of her back. "I know you're nervous to go in there," she began, "but you mustn't be afraid. Earth is in a grave danger, and we need you to go in there to help us understand exactly what is going on."

" _But what if_ -"

"You need to trust me when I tell you that if you follow your best instincts and believe in yourself, that this will go through easily. The more you make this difficult on yourself the more trouble you'll find yourself in."

Peridot was quiet a moment. Each gem could see each individual tick of her limbs as they steeled themselves, and watched as

"Right," she exhaled, smoother than both she and the others had anticipated it coming out. "Just play it cool," she recited. "Play it cool and the chances of you being shattered by one of the other Peridots drops seventy-nine percent. Roughly."

"There we go!" Amethyst remarked proudly, giving Peridot's limb a mild punch for morale, and for good measure. "Now go on in there and hack all their stuff. No Homegem's gonna be able to sneak by _us_ when we've got all the know!"

"Amethyst, be quiet!" Chastised Pearl, growing a few extra figurative grey hairs on her head as the short gem drew back in cheeky surrender. "We don't know when one of the Peridots could be near!"

"Like. . . that kinda Peridot?"

All of the gems' heads snapped to Steven as he pointed towards the end of the rift valley, where through the dusty haze they could make out a shape becoming clearer and clearer.

"Hide!" Pearl grabbed Steven in her arms before throwing both he and herself into an empty Quartz hole. Amethyst followed suit, jumping into the one adjacent to theirs. Peridot threw Garnet a terrified look before bolting off to slip into a nearby gem cavity, stamping in and crawling until the shadows obscured her from outside view.

Through the low fog, she could make out the shape of of huge green feet from just outside her hiding place.

 _"She knows, she knows, she knows!"_ Came the horrific mantra in Peridot's head, and it was all that she could do to avoid further confrontation to keep her fingers clamped sorely over her jaw to stop her from making any petrified sounds.

After what seemed like centuries, the Peridot continued on, the sound of clanking metal implying that she was heading farther away from their home site, and therefore, further away from all the trouble they were about to cause.

They waited until the sound of her limb enhancers faded into nothing before crawling out of the holes. All of the gems sported the same startled expression, save for Garnet who turned to Peridot with renewed tenacity.

"For a second," Steven murmured hesitantly, "I kinda thought that was you, Peridot."

"That's because it was the Peridot with the gem placed on her forehead," Garnet informed. "Peridot, you'll need to remove your visor if you're to assume her place among them."

"You mean, I'll pretend to be her?" The green gem gaped. "I don't know who she is, or what her facet is, or even her cut!" Her fingers twitched and spasmed with a new flush of panic. "What if I'm interrogated by one of the others and unable to supply that kind of information?"

"You won't be. And I can see that our time window is running out, we need to get moving." Garnet traced her finger along the edge of her visor before approaching Peridot, placing her gems over both of the quivering gem's shoulders to assuage her worries. "We'll be watching you. If we hear, or even see anything, that suggests something's gone wrong, we promise to be there to help you."

"Crystal Gem promise!" Steven popped in from beside Garnet, reaching his hand out for a high five which Peridot dubiously eyed.

"Okay," she finally appeased. "I'll go. I'm going to hack their database, retrieve the statistics of their responsibilities on Earth, and possibly plunder their operation here in the Kindergarten."

"When you put it like that it sounds _way_ more dangerous."

"Not now, Amethyst, can't you see she's developing fortitude?"

Peridot's arm rose slowly and her fingers wrapped around the rims of her visor. In a quick thrash they were torn off, revealing the entirety of her angular green face for all to see. Steven even let out an awe-filled little _whoa_. He hadn't expected her eyes to be so teal!

She determinedly shoved them into Garnet's waiting hands. "I'm going now." She steered herself away from the taller gem, shoulders tense and legs carrying her insecurely over the rocky ground. "I'm going now, to further endanger myself but consequently save the millions of respectable life forms on this planet." Slowly, her gait grew more self-assured and her head even raised a few centimeters.

Suddenly she stopped, and the others feared that her surge of intrepidity had burned out.

Except when she turned, her expression only pegged them with one thing: guilty concern. "If I don't come back," she whisper-shouted, "tell Lapis I really, _really_ enjoyed living with her. On an emotional level." She spun around again before anyone could register what she'd requested and tramped off in the direction of the Peridot site.

Steven and Amethyst waved her off encouragingly while Garnet and Pearl watched quietly on from behind.

"Let's hope this was a good idea," Pearl mumbled.

* * *

The prosaic clanking of her enhancers was the only sound to accompany Peridot down the winding canyon. She could make out the ominous silhouette of the enemy vessel in the distance, large and imposing even when stationed and most probably offline.

Mustering whatever whatever scraps of cocky courage she had left Peridot pulled up her screen and began to rifle through its countless fields of analysis technology. One of its assets among perpetual others!

Peridot felt an overwhelming sense of appreciation for Lapis for finding them once more. She felt obligated to return the favor, but as far as she knew, Lapis never donned any limb enhancers. What could she repay her with? Something that defied the simplistic laws of compensation; she needed something. . . Something more than just an abstract meep morp devoted solely to her. . .

. . . Something more.

Realizing she was getting off-task she sharply pressed a finger to the screen. Luckily, it happened to fall on the exact place that would take her to achieve unauthorized access to its inner locking mechanism.

While it was digesting the code, she made a quick inspection of her surroundings. The other Peridot she had seen was nowhere in sight, and neither was the rest of her team. One relief among the many, many worries that currently plagued her conscience.

Pulling her eyes back to the screen, a curriculum displaying the ship's name at the top of the data outline was scrolling past. " _Agh_ , I know all this," the gem grumbled as she fidgeted with the audit. She knew what type of ships Peridots were typically responsible for operating; she _was_ a Peridot, for Diamond's sake. What she didn't like was the subtitle which read Kindergarten Executive.

Whatever business this thing had here, it wasn't to help the grass grow any greener, as Steven would say.

Her lips split into a brash smirk when she reached a point where it presented with with a big, familiar button.

"And. . . _open_!"

With nothing more than a tap the ship entrance unsealed, releasing its hinges with a resounding _pshhh_ as eerie steam billowed out from inside. Peridot wasted no time in running over to the opened door and darting inside.

As soon as she stopped her vision was filled with mellow greenish-yellow light. The ship was by no means a small vessel, like the Ruby flight kite; a main console unit branched out into four passageways, all glittering with the same glassy green interior design as her old hand ship.

She eventually found the prime control panel, and before anything else, disengaged the security system before it picked up on an unfriendly presence. Once that was over with, she preened at her expertise before starting up the system. She was careful to only engage its inner workings, closing the door behind her so that no one watching from the outside would be any the wiser.

"Now. . ." She grunted as she sped through the archive for what she was seeking for. "Repairs. . . Framework. . . No, no, no!" She had to refrain from punching the console now that she had her limb enhancers back. "Just work, you stupid machine!"

Her words seemed to be enough to persuade the system to rapidly scroll through its contents. Peridot was in a tizzy as numerous square holograms flashed before her eyes, presenting data here and there, eventually filling up her entire field of vision until it all collapsed on itself. It left one holograph behind, twitching above the console as it awaited her touch.

Warily, Peridot reached out and read through the file. "This is it," she breathed. Without a second thought she plugged herself into the panel via her robotic fingers, skimming over the lines of Gem text that were on the program.

None of what it said made her feel any better about Gemkind.

The wait for the files to complete syncing with her own directory was agonizing, but immensely fulfilling when it ceased with a rewarding beep.

Just as she powered the console down, deleting a few important choice codex files from it as a final _"bite me, clods"_ to Homeworld, a voice interrupted her from behind.

"What are you doing in here?"

Peridot's throat clenched. She should have suspected one of them would return to their vessel, now of all times.

Steven's words rung in her ears. _"Play it cool, and you'll blend right in!"_

 _"Play it cool."_

"Recoordinating the programs," she stated, surprised at the cool monotony of her tone. She had to sink back into her old demeanor, the Peridot before Steven, the Peridot before _Earth_. "They were out of order, and whoever's responsible for disheveling the system is only going to further complicate the mission."

She finally turned to face the Peridot who had entered the ship.

It was the Peridot who had nearly blasted the injector the Crystal Gems had been hiding behind a day ago, the one with the gem in her shoulder. She was standing with her limb enhancer cocked arrogantly against her hip.

"Whatever," she sighed, blatantly disinterested in Peridot's spiel. "Get out and assist me with this. 2XC is assigning us to reconfigure the glitching panel in the second quadrant."

She couldn't just _reject_ the order. Homeworld practiced no illustrations of liberty, not like she was able to on Earth. Any disobedience would immediately be reported; even if she wasn't affiliated with them anymore. . . it left an awful feeling of black dread in her form.

Peridot whipped her fingers out of the control system and followed the other green gem out of the ship, watching it seal shut suspiciously behind them.

She wondered if the other Crystal Gems were watching her now. Would they intervene now that she was headed off-course?

The two gems walked onto the platform that would lead down into the heart of the Kindergarten underground facilities, and old memories of running wild through the old purple canyons with the Crystal Gems hot on her tail resurfaced as the panel glowed and they were taken deep under the surface.

They emerged into the main lobby. Shoulder, as Peridot would mentally refer to her until learning her formal facet and cut, eyed the run-down complex with blatant disgust. "Honestly," she snipped, "you would think that at least one of our escorts would have made it here to confirm that it was in malleable working condition before we landed."

"Escorts?" Peridot asked before she could stop herself. When Shoulder turned to her like she'd just called Yellow Diamond a clod _again_ , she felt a bead of sweat trickle down her face as she hastily turned her face away to focus on a broken set of gem supply containment pillars.

"The _Rubies_ and our assigned _Aventurine_?" Shoulder made it sound like it was blindingly obvious. "The ones who were lost on all systems while en route to this desolate planet? Also, you're headed in the incorrect direction."

"Of course." Peridot twirled around hastily and stayed behind Shoulder as they headed deeper into the decrepit facility.

Now that she knew the rueful truth of this place, courtesy of multiple tirades from Pearl, her feelings were conflicted. It was a place she had been specifically created to harness the power of; she was a Kindergartner, and to think of this place as one of _evil_ was a new and alien feeling.

"If only their vessels remained on radar," Shoulder muttered, to no gem in particular Peridot was certain. "Leaving that sort of corrosive material to the _organic_ species on this planet is bound to have a negative effect. Not that it will matter soon."

Peridot squinted as she assisted Shoulder in cleaning out the clutter surrounding a blank-screened panel. "What do you mean?" She tried. " _Good, just, just keep gathering intel. Like Garnet said. The more knowledge, the more you can save._ "

"I mean the Trenchant Form Destabilizer. What, did you emerge minutes ago?"

Peridot shook her head, doing her best to hide her confusion over what the _Trenchant Form Destabilizer_ was. "No!" She snapped. "It's the accursed. . . Earth atmosphere effecting me. It's unnatural to have a constant gravitational pulling on your physical form."

Shoulder sneered as she completed reinstalling the new system. "Pebble. The system is now functioning. Tagging console for further investigation should further problems arise in its software in the future."

"This planet is going to be broken apart by the Cluster in coming time," Shoulder called out coldly as she stomped down the dank corridors. "Yellow Diamond has decreed that we take advantages the remainder of its resources before it expires. And in case you forgot what a _Kindergarten_ is, as well, I'm sure that 2XC would be _pleased_ to give you a stern lecture about that."

Now alone in the dimly lit chamber, Peridot brought up her screen and eyed the new contents plaguing its archive.

The others would not be happy to see this.

Peridot spun around and flew to the hub of the Kindergarten, but not before pausing and giving the main line of consoles a wary look.

 _"Well,"_ she mentally decided, raising her arm canon and preparing a blast at the central hub system. "They never said I couldn't destroy a few things."

Before she could use her better judgment, she released a burst of electronic green energy that crashed into the hardwire, sending the place up in a blaze of broken machinery that awoke a thunderous, crackling roar that sent her fleeing onto the elevator.

She rapidly activated it just as she could hear a stringent voice calling out from below, demanding to know what ' _misgrown pebble had the idiotic **audacity**_ ' to do this. "Farewell, clods!" Peridot cackled as she was pulled up on the platform. When it stopped she threw herself onto solid ground, sprinting with all her might back to the small ravine where the Crystal Gems had made her rendezvous point.

When she entered the valley, she was greeted by silence. "Hello?"

"Peridot?"

Pearl's alarmed hiss followed. "Steven, get _down_!"

"No, it's really her!"

A familiar human emerged from a hole, rushing over to Peridot and throwing his chubby arms around her legs. "Peri's back! Come out, guys!"

A flushed Pearl crawled out from the same hole Steven had emerged from, followed by Amethyst who had an impish look about her. Garnet jumped down from above, scaring the absolute wits out of Peridot when she placed her hand on her back.

"So did you get all the stuff? Huh? All the _bad stuff_ they're gonna do to the place?" Amethyst stared up at Peridot, violet eyes large with morbidity. Pearl promptly berated her with a nervous twitter.

"Yes, I got it!" She affirmed, holding up an enhancer and giving it a victorious shake. "And all that we need to know about their functions on Earth are in here." She opened her screen, where a small excerpt of all the data she'd ripped from the Homeworld archives flashed on-screen. "And, we may want to leave soon. Quite soon, actually. Very soon."

Garnet's head shifted in the direction from whence Peridot had come. "Definitely. They're quite upset over the wreckage."

Pearl's jaw dropped to the floor. " _Wreckage_?"

"We'll hear what she has to say when we return to the Temple," Garnet insisted as she broke into a sprint for their warp pad. "We may want to get moving before they all come out of the facility."

"Aww yeah!" Amethyst bellowed, dragging out her whip in an adrenalized flash of light as the team pelted across the Kindergarten. "Give it up for Peri!"

* * *

 **Peri's eyes being teal is my own personal headcanon! I actually had to go ask for some second opinions from friends before I decided to just go with my own. And aaaa, I've been excited to write this chapter since I began to write this story? It just seemed so cool a concept at the time, and I still think it is now. Kinda sad it's already gone 'n written!**

 **Oh well, more to come, I guess. Remember to favorite or review to lemme know you like the story! I'm awestruck by all of the amazing feedback so far, it's amazing!**

 **I'd like to say updates _may_ be a little slower from now on, once or twice a week, since winter break's over Tuesday. If I'm lucky, twelve can be out before school starts back up again.**


	12. Chapter 12

**I'd like to apologize for the _absurd lateness_ of this chapter! I was planning to have it out two weekends ago but school really shoved itself into my way after winter break. Once the storm of schoolwork got lighter I could finally work on this thing again. This shouldn't happen again unless it's exam time!**

 **This chapter's also a shorter than I would've liked, but that's because I don't like writing chatty scenes ( _Maybe that's why I stal- I mean, had trouble?_ ) I like action sequences above all! And those will return soon, veeeery soon, _hmmmm_.**

 **Disclaimer: Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar.**

* * *

As soon as the light faded from around them on the warp pad, the Crystal Gems spilled readily into Steven's home.

Amethyst and Steven dove onto the sofa, followed hesitantly thereafter by Pearl, while Garnet remained on her feet as Peridot paced thoughtfully before them.

The green gem eyed the convened gems, the weight of the news she carried feeling as heavy as her metaphorical heart. "When I gained access to their ship," she began as the fingers on her limb enhancers rotated and spread apart to form a large lime screen, "I located their main control panel system to view their mission status. When I'd found them, I synced them to my limb enhancers so we had the data readily at hand."

To demonstrate, Peridot began to fill the screen with multiple boxes filled with Gem data that told of the Peridots' duties on this planet. "They're here to utilize the last resources, to quote Shoulder."

" _Shoulder_?" Amethyst grimaced. "C'mon, you can think of a better name than that."

"But I called the Rubies by where their gems were!" Steven butted in.

The purple gem looked like she was about to say something before Pearl cut her off.

"Wait." The lithe startled up from the cushions, approaching Peridot's magnified screen with anxious steps. "Utilize last resources, you said?" She was met with what was probably a shameful nod from Peridot.

Pearl looked she had paled twenty different shades of white. "They're re-activating the Kindergarten." Her voice was but a feeble whisper as she viewed the different pages presented on the screen as her fists clenched and rested on her lips. With stony resolve, she turned on Peridot. " _They-_ They have to be stopped! We fought a thousand-year war to keep them from infringing on humankind! No, on _all_ of the precious life here!"

"They've already had one large plan foiled." Garnet pulled Pearl away from the flaking green gem and allowed her to wrap herself around the fusion's arm for a foundation to hold onto. "Peridot destroyed a large control hub before she left. It contained valuable information to the Peridots, and without it, they are already going to be days behind schedule in restarting the Kindergarten."

"They also believe that the cluster is still going to emerge," Peridot put in helpfully. "So they _must_ have only a short window of time to remain here on Earth before flying away to avoid certain obliteration."

Pearl looked mildly allayed, but she still looked sickly pale, even for her. "All right," she murmured, dropping her tight-knit shoulders in surrender. "What other information is there?"

Peridot was pleased to continue to carry on the role of being the most knowledgeable in the room. She visibly preened as she swiped in a portfolio with five images splayed across the top.

"These are the scouts Homeworld assigned to scope out the environment before the Peridots made a landing," she explained, pointing a levitating finger to the image of the Quartz soldier: the green Aventurine. "I believe that this is the very same Quartz soldier who was responsible for piloting the TF-18 pod brought to the barn."

"Oh, and those are the Rubies!" Steven pointed out from behind, eyes plastered on the four smaller profiles of Ruby soldiers. "Maybe those are the ones you guys fought? The _new_ corrupted gems?"

"Affirmative," Peridot quipped. Then her face fell into one of turmoil. "Yet I'm not sure how they could have become corrupted. Homeworld has nothing even moderately like corruption, and unless they _fused_ with a corruption like Jasper here on Earth. . ." She shuddered. "They couldn't have had any realistic reason to do that."

Garnet frowned beside her. "Wait here. I'm going to retrieve something from the bubble room."

The others watched, disconcerted, as the fusion made haste across the foundation and disappeared behind the magical Temple door.

Steven had shuffled up to Peridot's enlarged screen and was eyeing the profiles of each of the scouts with suspected culpability. "Maybe I could have helped them," he lamented, attempting to rest his hand on the biography of the third Ruby but jerking it back when his fingers phased through the screen. "Since they were new. Like how I tried to help Jasper."

Amethyst exhaled dramatically from behind the boy, coming up to clap her hand over his shoulder. "But what if they didn't wanna be helped, huh? I don't think any random stranger'd take getting spit on all too well."

Steven's eyes swam with dismay as he regarded Amethyst with a pleading look. "But if they knew I could heal them!"

"It wouldn't matter," Pearl sighed from behind, walking up to the Quartzes and resting a hand over Amethyst's on the boy's shoulders. "Corruption is. . it can't be fixed. Damage from the Diamonds. . ."

"But Jasper- and, maybe these guys! They weren't corrupted by the Diamonds, were they?" Steven spoke up, spinning around to face Pearl with shoulders squared. "We don't know what got them!"

"Actually, I think we just might have a clue."

Garnet stepped over the warp pad, wielding the eccentric bubbled item that had caused her and Peridot so much grief when they had tried to study it. Peridot balked at the sight of it, resulting in the glitching of her screen as she retracted her fingers to their docks. "Don't bring that thing in here!" She spat. "You said it yourself that it was dangerous!"

"It's important that we consider its power now," Garnet stated, brushing past Peridot but keeping the bubbled item at a safe distance away from every gem around her. Even so, Amethyst was squinting at the item, as were Pearl and Peridot, while Steven stared unaffected at its surface.

"Wait, Garnet." Pearl approached the bubble, keeping her distance but standing close enough to make out each crude engravement in the item's surface. As well as something hauntingly recent. "What happened to it? It was broken!"

Peridot fidgeted where she stood, her enhancers making each little movement sound monumental. "When Garnet brought the item to me at the barn hoping I would perhaps recognize or be able to analyze it," she explained, "there was a brief malfunction in the pod's systems. . ."

Pearl's brows furrowed as she pointed accusingly at the fixed object. "A malfunction that _resealed_ its surface?"

"If you'd let me finish!" Snapped Peridot, fingers splaying out in her distress before they cupped around her chin. "The chamber where it must have been secured during flight sealed shut without my knowledge.

"Um, hey, Steven's here." The boy waved slightly. "What is that thing?" He glanced up at the item curiously. "And why does Amethyst dislike it so much?"

"It's making my head feel all funny," the purple gem grunted as she pressed her knuckles to her hair, rubbing a spot just above her temple soothingly. "You guys gettin' that, too?"

"I've been getting that since we first laid eyes upon it," Pearl affirmed with a weary sigh. "Its effect has been magnified, however, because it was. . . well, _fixed_."

Suddenly, Peridot's face was wrought with fearful understanding. "The Trenchant Form Destabilizer."

All eyes turned to the stunned green gem, all donning mirroring expressions of 'w _hat?'_

"The Peridot that found me spoke of a Trenchant Form Destabilizer," she reiterated, beginning to pace noisily before the others. "She spoke of it as though it were something valuable. I've never seen something like it before; it's evidently not part of Homeworld's much greater array of weaponry. If it's a _weapon_ , at all."

"It's obviously not just some trinket to play around with," Pearl commented.

"You called it a Trenchant Form Destabilizer, Peridot?"

The green gem lifted her eyes up to Garnet. "Yes?" She answered like she was asking the question instead.

"And what exactly did you experience when you laid hand upon it?"

Peridot's face contorted with disdain as she remembered when she did touch it. It had been an accident, but even the simplest of touches had left her with an aching body for a while. Only the adrenaline of their mission had chased out the ill feeling.

"I felt inundated," she stated bluntly. "It was painful for the briefest of moments before it turned into an ache. And it was white, I recall, before you pulled me away."

The bubble was brought into the centre of the group, held above the small Quartzes' heads for reasons Garnet enjoyed entitling _caution_. "I experienced a similar effect when I first touched it at the original crash site. Though with my future vision, it had a much more influencing outcome."

Pearl frowned. "Influencing?"

The fusion's dark lips pursed, like she was internally battling over whether or not to spill what she knew. All it took to coax her into it was one big, worried look from Steven.

"When I went back the first time to the site, shortly after leaving the pod with you and Lapis at the barn," she turned to Peridot and nodded, "I found it on the ground. We should have taken it back with us the moment we set eyes upon it. Its power isn't something to be dismissed so easily."

"C'mon, G, you're talking in riddles again," grumbled Amethyst. "What's up with this trenchant destabilizer thing?"

"When I touched it, my vision was taken over. I couldn't see anything but white, not until shadows began to take form. They became Gems. Not unlike us in physique." She recalled the horrific vision, seared a fiery white and nauseatingly blighted by terrified sights and sounds. "And before my eyes they corrupted. It was just as Steven and Amethyst foretold when they faced Jasper."

" _I helped too_!" Came Peridot's indignant shrill. "I'm the one that _poofed_ the brutish clo-"

"We know, Peridot," Pearl intervened, fixing Peridot with a correcting glare. "Allow Garnet to finish."

Peridot crossed her limbs over her chest, letting her fiery temper dwindle into nothing but a few offended grumbles as the fusion continued.

"Something triggered the item when the pod crashed on Earth. It has a dark and evil power hidden inside of it, not unlike something that myself and Pearl have seen." Garnet sent Pearl a look, and judging by the tormented lines that formed on her face, she knew what was being hinted at. "I believe this is the thing responsible for the corruption of Earth's recent invaders."

"But that doesn't explain why they have it," Peridot growled. "I've never seen anything like it! If it was a source of power for vessels, I would have known about it!"

Garnet's gaze narrowed as she scrutinized the bubbled destabilizer. "It carries power. Enough to kickstart the messenger pod you have at the barn. But if even you didn't know about it, it must be a very _recent_ creation."

Peridot grumbled her understanding. "I suppose it could have been implemented into the design of the TF-pod for the sake of the mission," relented the green gem.

"What's its name again? I got the destabilizer part but. . . trench?"

"Trenchant Form Destabilizer, Steven," Pearl informed. "Now that I think of it. . . the name seems to fit Garnet's hypothesis! _Trenchant_ defines something to be vigorous and biting, and _form destabilizer_ speaks for itself. . ."

The tall teal-and-white gem focused on Garnet. "You don't suppose Homeworld has truly found a way to manifest corruption into an object? That can be launched and _corrupt_ oneself?"

"It's what I saw."

"And what else did you see? What else is gonna happen?" Steven prodded softly. "I mean, if it's okay that we know! I don't think it's all that nice to think about, huh?"

Garnet hummed fondly, eyelids falling to half-mast as she held her hand over Steven's. "No, but it's very important that you all know. When Sapphire's gem was cracked," she began, gently tracing the triangular facet of the gem on her right palm as she sat down on the couch beside Steven, "she experienced heavy incursions of the future. It was why I split apart; she didn't want for Ruby to have to see. . ."

Steven crawled over on all fours before placing a hand in earnest over Garnet's thigh. "See what?"

Garnet's face twisted, first to hesitance, then resilience, and then finally reluctant acceptance. "Everything. Everything that could happen."

Peridot shared an anxious glance with Steven and Amethyst before voicing their thoughts. " _And_. . . what could happen?"

Garnet's visor suddenly dematerialized, revealing her three downcast eyes. "Homeworld is returning to Earth. I foresaw paths where the pod would be the only thing that alluded to that, or where destroying the Peridots' hub would fix the matter. But the way things have unfolded thus far, I'm beginning to believe that things will only become more complicated from here on out."

Pearl wrapped her arms nervously around the satin sash over her abdomen. "Do you know what will happen next?"

The fusion shook her head. "I see countless possibilities, endless opportunities and happenings," she iterated. "Some paths are vile and end in tragedy. I see paths where all of us are . ." Her voice trailed away as her eyes clenched and her fists tensed. The gems around her looked on with concern.

When the fusion looked up again, her features were hard with spirit. "That won't happen. Not if we stick together and use our heads. As for what could happen, Pearl, it's unclear. There's a number of things that the destruction of the Kindergarten hub could set off."

"Then we can make sure none of them happen by just, scoping out, or something," suggested Amethyst. "You tell us what's gonna happen and where it could happen, and we kick their behinds all the way back to Homeworld!"

"It's foolish to think that only one of us could take on their forces all alone." Garnet rose her hand and silenced the small stubborn quartz. " _Your_ first encounter with Homeworld gems is _nothing_ compared to the likeness of a true attack. Jasper is nothing compared to a fleet of soldiers sent with the order to shatter."

Peridot's muttering in the background about how she was _perfect_ enemy material went unheard.

Steven's eyes broadened. "Is. . is that what you saw, Garnet? Are soldiers coming? _Quartz soldiers_?"

Garnet's three eyes trailed down to Steven, each deep and dim with the things fate had in store for the Crystal Gems. "If we're fortunate, no. Yet, we seem to attract a fair bit of bad luck, don't we?"

"Hate to admit it, but she's kinda right, Steve-o." Amethyst sucked at her teeth before leaning into the boy's side, shrugging. "They can't keep their hands off of us."

"I mean- it isn't as if it's nothing we haven't handled before, Garnet!" Pearl broke in, clasping her hands thoughtfully in front of her chest. "During the war it was an everyday feat! Battling whole hordes of Quartz warriors! Saving the day, the _Earth_!" Her disposition promptly dimmed. "But. . . that was when we had Rose."

The words slipped out the second before she could stop herself, for the damage had already been done. Steven looked up, brows furrowed as he self-consciously kneaded the pink fabric covering his stomach. "Mom may be gone," he sighed, "but you guys have me. And I'm not about to give up just yet! And. . . neither are you guys?"

Amethyst hooted her agreement, followed quickly by a determined " _yeah!_ " from Peridot. Pearl followed more softly. Lastly, Garnet smiled down at the curly-haired boy before lovingly running her right hand through his head of dark hair. "Never. Not in a thousand years."

Steven beamed at his family, feeling the blood excitedly rush into his cheeks as he regarded the bubbled Trenchant Destabilizer. "Then whatever this magical gem thing is, we're totally gonna figure it out and stop it! Maybe it's the only one - and what's one little thing compared to the _Crystal Gems_!"

Whatever nerves the five gems might have had were chased firmly away by the boy's warm voice. It even earned a few amused cackles out of Peridot as Amethyst wrapped her arm around Steven's head to give the sentimental kid a noogie. "That's our sappy Steven, keepin' us from harm with his feelings." Steven playfully laughed while tossing a lifeless punch at the purple gem.

"If we're done now, I think we should be putting that back in the bubble room where it's safe and no one can accidentally pop it," Pearl recommended, gently taking the bubble from Garnet. "Garnet?"

"Of course." The fusion gently pried Steven from her lap, but not before pressing a kiss to his forehead. "We'll be back soon to discuss this further. I think it's best that all of us gets our heads clear for now."

Peridot watched Pearl and Garnet vanish into the temple to return the bubbled form destabilizer. "I suppose I should be off, then. Lapis will want to know that I didn't get blasted into pieces by the other Peridots."

Amethyst snorted incredulously. "Yeah, like that'd happen," she snickered as she waltzed over to the now-much-taller green gem. "You're crazy enough to blast them the second they would'a begun having doubts with these big ol' things," she tapped a leg enhancer.

"Oh, wait, Peridot! Before you go!" Steven broke away and hurried up the stairs to his loft at a speed the Gems didn't know the boy had before he stumbled back down with something colourful bundled in his hands. "Here! I think you and Lapis might want this back since I've kinda had it for a month now and Connie and I didn't even really use it when I asked."

He stretched out his hands, and rolled in them was the fuzzy turquoise blanket Peridot and Lapis sometimes used together up on the truckbed. Lapis would profit from it more often, since Peridot didn't exactly enjoy the feeling of being smothered by all that fabric.

"Wow, thanks." Peridot reached out and grasped the soft blanket, eyes widening with surprise when she grabbed onto it.

When her gravitating fingers rubbed the surface of the sheet, her features fell slightly. "I can't feel it."

Even if she hadn't liked being stifled with the thing, she had always liked how soft and warm its surface was. Now, she could feel nothing. She clenched the blanket in her digits, absentmindedly flexing her fist like it would help change the odd feeling she'd grown used to: _feeling_. Limb enhancers nullified that physical sense tenfold.

Peridot was going to miss it. She really was.

She looked back down to see Steven eyeing her thoughtfully. She shook herself out of it and held the blanket a little bit tighter, pressing it up to the diamond on her chest.

"Okay," she huffed. "Keep me updated on what's happening."

With nothing more than a few heavy stamps of her metallic feet Peridot walked back over to the warp pad, vanishing in a blaze of light and leaving Steven and Amethyst together in the beach house.

"So you really think all those gems are going haywire 'cuz of that thing?" Amethyst said to Steven. "I wouldn't doubt it with the migraine it gave me, _yeesh_."

"You could've just look away from it, you know."

* * *

 **Woof, that was a hard one to finish. I kept getting hit by a major writer's block because I'm just not a fan of continuous dialogue. Anyway, uh, seeya next chapter!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Yayyy, I can start on posting this story often again! Maybe once (or way more rarely, twice) a week from now on! School's finally calmed down, but theatre's a-comin' with a vengeance next week since our first contest is soon. Like, next Friday soon.**

 **And who else is hype for The New Crystal Gems? I really hope to see some Connie/Lapis/Peridot action!**

* * *

 **Disclaimer, Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar and the Crewniverse!**

* * *

When Peridot was transported back to the barn, it was Veggie Head who jubilantly rushed to greet her. Not two seconds after the pillar of dazzling blue light had depleted did she feel something ram into her chest and send her stumbling backward off the warp pad's surface.

" _Gyack_!" She choked as her head made contact with the soft grass. Her neck craned until she could see their pumpkin energetically sprinting in circles around her, before eventually tiring himself out after the second orbit and collapsing belly-down beside her face.

She snorted. "I missed you too, Veggie. Though I don't believe I share your joy to _that_ much of an extent. Then again, why wouldn't you be so exultant? I could have been shattered! But no, I saved the day! Again!" With a high-pitched signature cackle she rolled over and locked the exhausted pumpkin in her arm enhancers before hobbling up onto her feet.

She felt the familiar rush of bereavement rake through her being when she couldn't feel him in any place other than her chest. " _Curse these limb enhanc- wait, no!"_ She _wanted_ this, didn't she? She could stand not feeling anything again. She had before! _"Ugh_."

Peridot shook herself out of the cursory self-pity session before starting to hike toward the barn. It was only a few strides uphill before a very familiar and very welcomed voice called out to her.

"Peridot!"

Something blue zipped seemingly out of nowhere and Peridot had to stop herself from crashing into Lapis as she landed right-smack in front of her. Peridot felt her physical form thrill with shock.

"Stars, Lapi- _hmmf_!" She felt arms wrap around her, quick and fluid yet firm like the element the water gem controlled. Before she realized what had transpired Lapis had drawn back, and her eyes were full with relief. "You're okay!"

Peridot beamed as she fought down the colour rising into her cheeks as she assumed as breathtaking a pose as she could while still supporting Veggie Head. "O-Of course! Why wouldn't I be?"

"The last time you pitted yourself against some Homeworld gems. . . _well._ . ." Lapis nonchalantly made a wrist-flicking motion, eyebrows quirked with smug knowing.

"You said you wouldn't bring up the Roaming Eye incident!" Peridot whined. "At least not for a few more decades! It's only been. . . _guh_. . . a _tenth_ of a decade!"

"You can't stop me," the blue gem dryly teased.

Veggie Head decided to make his presence re-known as he began to wrestle against Peridot's metallic grip, vaulting out of her grasp and into Lapis' arms to hastily catch their pumpkin before he fell. "So how did it go? Did you get everything you guys needed?" The blue gem asked as she pet the flustered vegetable's head.

"That and more!" Peridot chimed before launching into a, more than a _bit_ exaggerated, tale of how she, Peridot, leader of the Crystal Gems, had vanquished all doubts and retrieved the files. Stars, she had even infiltrated the main hub system!

"Not only was I able to breach their files, I was also able to destroy their central hub!"

Lapis looked only slightly mindful as she sunk a little deeper into one of their most recent additions to the barn: a large tan cushion that squashed down when you laid back in it. When Peridot had searched her tablet for its name, the internet had declared it as a _bean bag._ Needless to say, they didn't like that name much.

"And you did all that without getting caught?" She inquired once Peridot looked finished with her gushing.

"Oh, I was nearly spotted fleeing from the site of devastation!"

Lapis felt her throat constrict as she balked at the stupidly grinning gem. "What?"

"When I was riding the elevator back up to the Prime Kindergarten's surface, I could hear the other Peridots rushing to the scene," the green gem prattled distastefully, like how she would talk about Paulette's overarching character development (or more appropriately, lack thereof because Paulette hardly had any character at _all_ ) in season four.

"Unfortunately for those ruddy clods, the culprit was already on the run! _Not_ to say that I was running for fear of my gem being grinded, _no_ , just-"

"But you didn't get hurt?"

Peridot would have groused on any other occasion where Lapis interrupted, but the genuine concern in her voice made her rethink her reaction.

"No, I came out without a scratch on me!" She consoled, and with that Lapis seemed to sink further into the bean bag with a resounding huff. "So you didn't freak out like you thought you would?"

Peridot stiffened. "How did you know I thought that!" She gawked. "You don't have telepathic powers!"

"You were almost hyperventilating about it a few minutes before the others came to pick you up."

An embarrassed groan escaped Peridot as she flopped onto her back, letting out a shocked squeal when the extra weight of her limb enhancers carried her down faster and more aggressively than usual. "Ow."

"Careful, those make you heavier."

"Noted, Lapis. Thank you."

Lapis chuckled as Veggie Head pounced off of her chest and hurried over to Peridot, panting in the fallen gem's face as she wiggled away to escape from the pumpkin's hounding. "So. . . what else did you find out? What is Homeworld here for?"

Peridot's amused features fell so quickly that Lapis was unsure if they had been there in the first place.

"They want to finish what they started on Earth," she murmured from the floor, closing her fidgety fingers together over her chest. "They're gonna re-start the Kindergarten. My most theoretically accurate idea of what to make of all this is that Yellow Diamond's sent other gems to finish what I never did. I was sent alone to reinstate the Kindergarten, and when the Crystal Gems intervened. . ."

"You had to get a escort. And an informant," Lapis finished bluntly for her. The air in the barn seemed to freeze over with lament as Peridot sent Lapis a very, very guilty look from the floor. Her chest ballooned with cold culpability. "Yes, I suppose I did," she sighed, before absentmindedly bringing up an enhancer and opening her finger screen.

 _"That was an idiotic thing to bring up,"_ she grumped to herself, inwardly chastising herself. _"Of course Lapis wouldn't think well of all_ that _."_

It took a few swipes to get to an older catalog that she noticed was filled to the brim with audio logs. Log date recordings, she realized, from before she had lost her limb enhancers.

"Oh!" The green gem rocked herself up onto her bottom and assumed a criss-cross applesauce position (Steven had pointed out the position's proper title a few weeks prior when he had come to visit). She pointed out her revelation to Lapis who, nonplussed, scrambled out of the bean bag and crouched on the floors beside her barn mate. "What is it?"

"My old logs!" Peridot informed, flourishing the translucent screen to a squinting Lapis. "All my recordings! They weren't erased after all! Although, it's not as though I checked."

Peridot scrolled through the files, recognizing some from the perilous times she had spent on Earth on the run from the Crystal Gems. The further down she got, however, the more hesitant she was to continue. These logs were archaic by her standards; even if they were no more than a single Earth rotation old, the feelings associated with the old audio clips were unpleasant.

"Here! I can play one," she exclaimed, opening a log and letting it run.

The voice speaking couldn't have possibly been her own, and yet, it was. It was monotonous and robotic, she first noticed, with no inclination as to what she was feeling whatsoever. The excited smile on her face quickly dampened, twisting into an expression that was very out-of-place on Peridot's face: remorse.

She had been speaking only for the sake of her mission. She wasn't speaking for herself, only her objective status on how the Kindergarten was fairing. How she requested an escort and a particular blue informant to intercept the problematic Crystal Gems.

There were even logs from when she had interrogated Lapis on the ship. It made her head throb just thinking of how coldly and indifferently she had handled her back then.

The playing log was cut short the finger screen promptly dimmed as her fingers were smacked back into their place above her arm. Lapis lurched away with a blink of surprise. "Peridot?"

"Let's do something else," the green gem pleaded. Lapis shrugged despite herself, and helped Peridot up to her feet with an outstretched hand. "Sure. We can go check on the ships."

"You know, Lapis, out of context, that's an incredibly odd thing for a Lapis Lazuli and a Peridot to invest in together."

"Eh, it's Earth. It's weird."

"You can say that again."

The two sauntered out of the barn. It turned into a quick race, but Lapis gained advantage as she unleashed her water wings and soared around the barn to where they now kept the pod. It was tucked in beside the Roaming Eye, which the Crystal Gems had left in their custodial care.

"Funny how they leave these with us," Lapis mused as she dropped to the ground as Peridot clanked up beside her with a glum frown. "The two Homeworld gems."

"But we're not exactly Homeworld now, are we?" Peridot scoffed as she moved past Lapis and hovered beside the TF-18 vessel, giving its dimpled surface an experimental knock. "Earth is my home now; I'd much rather be here on this strange, _liberating_ planet than Homeworld now."

She flashed Lapis an expectant grin from the pod but flushed when she saw Lapis regarding her with deep-seated thought. "Yeah," the blue gem finally conceded, walking over to stand above the pod beside Peridot. "So what are we going to do with this thing? Doesn't look like it's even usable."

Peridot would have pressed for more about Lapis' _very_ brief response to her monologue about home, but didn't want to push it if Lapis didn't want to talk about it. Instead, she focused on the pod with creative consideration.

"I'm sure it still be serviceable for transport," she noted. "Yet that would take materials and minerals that this planet sadly seems to lack." She saw Lapis' face brighten a moment before the blue gem snapped her eyes to Peridot's, something innovative in her eyes.

"We _could_ always turn it into a meep morp project," the blue gem suggested.

"Lapis."

"Peridot."

"That's an _ingenious_ concept. _Let's do it!_ "

Lapis snorted as the taller gem ducked and clambered into the pod, her magnetic fingers poising dramatically as she brought the control panel back to life. Glowing screens materialized before her as she belted out a maniacal giggle. "How shall we transform this letdown of a vessel into a meep morp? Perhaps let its lights glow green and blue rather than teal? Manipulate the screen coding to resemble a raindrop and a triangle?"

Lapis felt her mind pound at Peridot's overwhelmingly scientific list of suggestions. "Hold on," she demanded, holding out a hand as she bent down and gingerly lifted up a skirt-clad leg. "Let me in."

" _Erm,_ there isn't that much-"

"I'll manage, just scoot over."

Peridot followed her instructions and moved to the edge of the cockpit, teetering on the edge of the seat as the slender gem weaseled her way inside. Immediately her face was wrought with confusion at all the glowing panels and flickering buttons. ". . . What does this one do?" She asked as she pointed to a random button.

"That ignites the cosmic blasters built into every TF-18 vessel for last-measure defense mechanisms."

"And that glowing square there?"

"Scanners! Responsible for tracking the whereabouts of nearby vessels and identifying star systems from afar."

"Huh." Lapis truly wasn't all that interested in the technology. Her mind mind already formatting ways to remodel it into a meep morp piece to dazzle even the greatest of meep morpists. And that was she and Peridot, so it would _have_ to be a truly noteworthy conversion from broken-down pod to awe-inspiring morp.

As she curiously but inattentively tapped a glowing yellow pad that hovered close to Peridot's face, the pod began to exude a low-pitched frequency. Lapis swiftly snatched her hand back, fingers curling deep into her palm at the ominous mechanical response. "Uh, is it supposed to be doing that?" She asked.

Peridot flicked her eyes over to the display Lapis had touched. Her eyes widened with horror. "Get down, get down, _get down_!" The green gem's released a colourful string of jarring screeches as she grabbed onto Lapis. A thrum of magnetic energy suddenly rocked the gem pod and, ultimately, the two gems inside.

"What happened?" Lapis balked, staring widely up at the roof of the pod as Peridot let her go and struggled out through the opening. She followed her out, catching herself on Peridot's arm when the edge of the capsule window bit the end of her dress. "What did it do?"

Light had culminated in a crackling electromagnetic barrier that rippled across the surface of the incapacitated vessel before it glowed an extravagant yellow and threw itself up into the sky.

"Look." Peridot pointed up to the sky, and Lapis' eyes followed.

Sharp golden lines of light energy were patterned together across the night, spreading apart and straightening, interlacing and locking at corners until an immense diamond was burning across the night sky.

The two gems cowered far below the humongous display, Lapis sporting an expression of uneasiness while Peridot had a dawning horror plastered over her so densely it made her motionless.

"The Yellow Diamond flare signal," the green gem breathed, voice a timid and low thing that could only be heard in the sudden silence of the insects around them. It was almost like even the mindless little bugs could feel the abrupt shift in mood.

The complex golden flare soon vaporized into the night, leaving the galaxies behind it glinting as coldly and as silently as ever.

"That must have alerted far-reaching warning scanners everywhere," Peridot murmured, more to herself than her barn counterpart.

"What does that mean?" Clamored Lapis, mildly distraught over Peridot's frazzled mentality as she fell in beside the awestruck gem, glaring her down for answers. Or, _up_ , rather, now that she had her limb enhancers back.

With the fortuity she didn't think she had in that crippling moment, Peridot managed to lift her head and meet Lapis' dark, concerned eyes. Her floating fingers fluttered erratically up to hold the blue gem's shoulders, something she'd never been able to do unless Lapis was crouching or sitting before getting her enhancers back.

"It means that all those gemcraft headed to Earth to excavate its resources. . . " She gulped. "They just received the visual _and_ technical notification to land. If there were any in orbit already. . ."

Lapis' mouth ran dry as she sent the growling pod a wary peek. "You don't think-"

"Yes, I _do_ think," Peridot squeaked fretfully. "They're going to come down to Earth! And. . . and they're going to land _here._ "

* * *

"Steven, are you certain that you wouldn't like any iron in your sandwich?" Pearl's voice carried over from the kitchen where she was preparing a late dinner for for hungry boy.

A bead of sweat trickled down Steven's forehead as he regarded the question. "Um, I don't think I'd be able to digest that, Pearl. It's kinda really hard and. . . I don't think it would taste all that great."

Pearl's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "But after some extensive research it's been determined that iron is essential for the functionality of red blood cells!"

Steven chuckled nervously. "I think it means a different kind of iron. I mean, it could be the same element, but I can't just. . . eat a crowbar." A thought occurred to him. "At least, not like Amethyst can." Seeing her chomp a crowbar in half that one time had been _quite_ the sight to see; he wondered if gem teeth were indestructible.

Then again, Amethyst had eaten just about anything and everything and hadn't ever been to a dentist. . . but neither had he. Pearl had always been the one to check over him whenever he wasn't well on his human side. And again, that wasn't very common.

"If you say so," he heard Pearl mumble, setting aside whatever iron substance she had pulled out with a scrape. He didn't even bother looking to see what it was.

The boy turned to his cellphone which laid, untouched, on the tawny coffee table before him. Its screen mocked him, flickering with light whenever he'd move his eyes away and giving him the illusion that someone had messaged him. Since returning from their heist with Peridot, he had been trying to find the courage to tell Connie about Homeworld and the invaders.

He didn't understand _why_ he felt so nervous about it all of a sudden! Connie had gone hunting corrupted gems with he and Pearl before, she had even fought against Jasper! Well, they had fought Jasper together as Stevonnie, but Connie still counted! His fingers fidgeted with the rim of his shirt that covered the lower facets of his gem.

 _"She deserves to know,_ " he thought. " _I'll call her tomorrow morning. I think she'd be asleep by now._ "

He hadn't realized Pearl had been calling his name until he looked up and saw a pair of spindly legs covered by amber leggings. "Steven?"

Steven was yanked back to reality with a blink as he registered the concern on the gem's pale face. She held a plate with a finished sandwich and was gently motioning for him to grab it. "Thank you Pearl!" He smiled, taking the paper plate from the gem's hands and letting out a sigh of relief when he didn't see anything metal peeking out from under the slices of bread.

"You're very welcome, Steven. But I'm noticing you look a little. . . distracted." Pearl lowered herself onto the couch beside Steven, neatly folding her hands over her knees as the boy set the sandwich aside. "Is all this getting to be too much? All this. . . Homeworld intervention?"

Steven narrowed his eyes self-consciously. "No, it's not that," he admitted. "I'm just worried about all the people. Are the gems gonna hurt them? Dad said that people and gems got hurt during the war - will that happen again?"

Pearl's blue eyes grew weary. "Let's just hope that this doesn't come to war," the gem sighed as she rested a hand over Steven's hair. "If Homeworld truly is looking to begin stealing Earth's resources again, then. . ." She attained a faraway look, eyes misty with timeless memory. "Then it may be our only choice. If they hurt the planet, they consequently hurt the life here. And that includes. . . " Pearl looked to Steven hopefully.

"People," the boy concluded. "Yeah. Why are they doing it anyway? I know Peridot said that Homeworld is running low on resources, but why go through all the trouble of using Earth again? The last time they tried that. . . well, mom started a war."

He knew that referring to Rose around Pearl was bound to bring up some nostalgia, but the way that this conversation was headed, she was bound to come up at some point. "Your mother," Pearl said as he reached out to grab the paper plate with his sandwich from the table, "treasured the life here. More than any gem. She wasn't about to let them suffer because of Homeworld's selfishness. Just like we aren't."

Steven took a thoughtful bite from the sandwich, humming happily when he realized it was ham-and-cheese. "What about Connie? Do you think it's okay to tell her?" He questioned. "It's not fair to leave her out of this. . . she's kinda a Crystal Gem too! She's trained by you, and she fuses with me for Stevonnie who's awesome! I think she should be in on this."

"The danger Homeworld poses was much for even an entire army of Crystal Gems, Steven," Pearl pressed. "With there only being. . . five Crystal gems left on Earth, it isn't going to be something as easy as stopping a corrupted gem."

"Well. . . there's more than five. What about all the gems in the bubble room? What about Bismuth?"

Melancholy chilled her form as she regarded the hundreds of bubbled gems in the chamber. It was true that some of them could have been Crystal Gems, but the gem inside was long gone by now. Without a way to revert them. . . They were lost. And Bismuth was a wholly different scenario; but if push came to shove. . .

Pearl shook herself. "The point being," she sadly stated, "I'm unsure if she's ready for such things yet. Gem combat is not something to take lightly without the hundreds of years of combat experience."

Steven stopped mid-chew on his second mouthful of bread and ham as he stared in disbelief up at the blue-and-white gem. "But she and I took on Jasper together, and beat her!"

"But that was one gem. This could be tens, hundreds. Maybe thousands! Once Homeworld learns of rebellion still present on Earth, they won't hesitate to send _everything_ they have!"

Steven frowned. "Because they're upset about Pink Diamond."

"Steven-"

"I can guess how the Diamonds must feel about having a Diamond shattered." The dark-haired boy looked up to the peach-haired gem, whose face reflected shock and despair. "They're gonna be hurting and sad, and want to stop thinking about the Earth because that's where she got shattered. Maybe that's why they created the Cluster, so they wouldn't have to think of Earth anymore," Steven added as he frowned down at his unfinished dinner.

He suddenly wasn't very hungry anymore.

Pearl noticed the half-gem's shift to cheerlessness, and comfortingly blanketed his shoulder with her arm. "I'll speak with Garnet about it," she gave in. "She knows far better than I what kinds of consequences can happen from letting Connie participate in this."

Chubby arms folded around her tunic-covered midsection as Steven chorused out a string of _thank you, thank you!_ 's.

As if on cue the temple door promptly glowed to life, and a familiar fusion stepped from the dim-lit bubble room. When she saw Pearl and Steven looking over at her from the couch, she lifted up a hand to casually wave. "Howdy."

"Garnet!" Steven jolted up, prying himself off of Pearl-much to the thin gem's silent disappointment-before rushing up to their leader. "Can Connie help us with this? I-I know she's not a gem, but she's just as skilled and as smart as one! She'll know what to do!"

" _After_ being taught proper battle etiquette and strategy," Pearl chipped in from behind the boy, lifting his half-eaten sandwich from the sofa and placing it back on the coffee table to avoid spreading crumbs all over the cushions. She made her way over to Garnet and Steven, hands on her sash. "And that applies to you, as well. Thus far, you two have been revolutionary, but we're going to need a bit more if you're really going to bear arms against the likes of true Homeworld mercenaries."

Garnet's face was unreadable, but after one glance to a pensive Pearl and a second to an exhilarated Steven, she concluded her choice.

"Steven, Connie can help us."

" _Aaaa!_ " Steven let out an excited yell and tackled Garnet's left leg out of pure adrenaline. "Thank you, Garnet! She-I- _We_ won't let you down! Ooh, just wait until I tell her! Do you think I should call her and talk about it? Or would it be better in person?"

"I think that you should be careful," Garnet commented. "This is serious business. There's a true threat en route to planet Earth, and we do need all the help we can get. But I need you to promise me this, Steven." Steven looked up to Garnet's visors expectantly.

"Keep her safe and don't leave one another's sides. You're going to need each other like never before."

Neither Pearl nor Steven had the time to fully understand the weight of the tall gem's words before sound flared from the warp pad.

They all spun around as luminescent light unexpectedly engulfed the beach house quarters to signify the arrival of two _very_ nervous-looking gems.

Pearl leaped back with a startled yelp. Peridot tumbled off of the warp pad towards them. "We're sorry!" She shrilled, frantically grabbing onto Pearl's shoulders and pressing her fingers in like a cat's claws. "It was an accident! We were being clods and-"

"Whoa, whoa!" Steven rushed over from his place at the kitchen island, abandoning his late dinner. It didn't take him long to realize something was awry when he dissected their expressions and saw them both fashioned with different levels of dismay. "Hold the phone, now give it to me. What happened, guys? Are you okay?"

"We won't be for _long_!" Peridot lamented in a cracked voice, releasing Pearl who grumbled with puzzlement and moving to tower over Steven as her fingers dug into her shock of yellow hair. "We didn't mean to do it!"

Garnet's hand was placed sternly on the panicking gem's shoulder. Peridot was spun around to face the fusion. "You didn't mean to do what exactly, Peridot?"

Peridot's teeth ground her lower lip until it swelled. She could feel Lapis' presence beside her, offering silent protection for the sake of the rather unfortunate news they had to deliver. "We- _aa-hmm._ " She tried again. "You see-"

"We might have accidentally set off a flare from the pod," Lapis finished for her, holding a hand to the small of her back for support.

"You did what!"

Pearl's shriek carried so high that they were all surprised a gem didn't crack from the ridiculous pitch. The thin gem was dutifully stomping over to the barn gems and casting each a respective scathing glare. "What in the _world_ made you two think that-"

"It was an _accident_ ," Lapis deadpanned with an underlying growl at the white gem. "We were in the pod and-"

"Why were you guys in the pod?" Steven raced up to Lapis and Peridot, staring up at his friends with huge, somber brown eyes. His fingers wrung tensely together. The boy's voice dipped in volume as he timidly asked, "you weren't trying to go back, were you? Or run away?"

Their befuddlement showed so prominently as they looked at Steven, then at each other, before diving down to console the upset child. "No, no, we'd never do that!" Peridot prattled, crouching in front of the boy and feeling off when she still loomed over him. She looked to Lapis for help as she placed shaky fingers on the boy's back.

The ocean gem was on the boy's other side. "She's right - this is our home now, Steven. Some Homeworld gems aren't going to scare us away just like that. After all, we've fended _pretty well_ on our own over there." She sent Peridot a half-hearted smile, which Peridot hesitantly reciprocated as they stepped back away from the relieved hybrid.

The temple gate swooshed open again, this time revealing a petulant-looking Amethyst with her arms barred over her white top. "Why's everyone yelling? I can't even sleep because Pearl's yakking is so loud."

"I happen to believe that I have a _very_ appropriate reason for my _yakking_ ," Pearl snapped back, to Amethyst's surprise. "These two sent out a flare signal!" Her finger jabbed towards Lapis and Peridot, who were defensively standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their fingers brushing. "Who knows who could have seen it?" Pearl gawked. "Surely any gem in relative range!"

"Actually, any gem within orbit could have been alerted to the flare signal," Peridot corrected with a mumble, but closed up her point when Pearl glowered at her. "It sent out a technical message; a cry for help, if you would. They would think that their allies were in peril."

Steven cocked his head. "Wouldn't that make them more angry?"

Garnet was silent for the most part, and Amethyst was hardly troubled as she moseyed up to the kitchen island and stole one of the bar stools for herself. "I guess. I mean, any of us would be peeved if one of us got hurt."

"Homeworld would choose the objective approach, not a personal approach," Lapis remarked bluntly.

"What about this i _sn't_ personal, though?" Steven reckoned. "Homeworld's always had it out for Earth. From sending Peridot, to the creepy shard experiments. . ."

"None of that was as full-scale as it is now." Garnet stepped forward, adjusting her visor with one hand while the other crunched into a fist at her side. "There was going to be trouble on whichever path we chose." She motioned to Lapis and Peridot coolly. "Their incident with the Diamond flare has only just made the trouble come faster than before."

"That's just _great_ ," Pearl uttered sarcastically, covering her eyes with her twitching hands. "There's no way we can prepare for an all-encompassing invasion without time for preparation. We had a hundred years for the last year! Who knows just how short we are of time now. . . "

"Come on, buck up, Pearl." Said gem hadn't noticed Amethyst hopping off of the bar stool and coming over to her side. "We've fended off Homeworld before, right? And sure, this time there's gonna be a whole lot more of them. I mean, I've never seen anything like them outside of these two-" she looked at Lapis and Peridot, "and Jasper. YD and that Pearl showing up on Pear's communication thing doesn't count. But they've probably never seen anything like _us,_ either."

Pearl's shoulders loosened at the words, but she still wasn't reassured. "Some of them could very well be veterans from the war," she notified with a glance to Garnet. "They would understand war protocol. They know well how to hurt us where it counts, like they have before."

Her arms wrapped tightly around her abdomen as she felt Garnet's gem-embedded palm clap her shoulder softly. "And yet, we still prosper today." The leader of the Crystal Gems turned to address the other inhabitants of the room, the fidgeting Peridot, the aloof Lapis, the patriotic Amethyst, and lastly, Steven, looking up to her with eyes dark with open determination.

Garnet hummed. "We can prepare, and we can fight. Gems, we've got a lot of work ahead of us."

* * *

 **You _guys_ , I _specifically_ told you not to mess with that gem pod anymore. Now look what you did. It's got anxiety and it's sending out signals for help _. Geez._**

 **Also, this is the longest chapter thus far! Not by much, only maybe a hundred or so words, but woo! _Productivity!_ Anyways, seeya next chapter!**


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